Moving

I haven't posted in a few months, because I've been extremely busy. In addition to my normal hyperloaded writing schedule, I moved to Minnesota, got married, and went on a honeymoon. That's two months or so of solid activity, from which I'm only just now recovering.

I'll leave the marriage bit for a future post, and focus for now on the moving part of the equation. First off, know that I've lived in the same city for all of my 50 years; this was a move out of state, which made it a big deal. While I did a fair share of moving from apartment to apartment when I was younger, I've lived for the past 16 years in the same house -- which means I simply didn't have much current experience with the moving thing.

I made it easy on myself by hiring movers to do the whole thing -- packing, loading, driving, etc. That was a good thing; what might have taken me weeks took them a few days. Luckily for me, the only damage I've noted (so far) was in three halogen floor lamps, which arrived somewhat bent out of shape. No big deal; the big stuff made it through relatively unscathed.

I moved from a 1700 sq. ft. one-story house to a 4000 sq. ft. two-story with a full basement. The extra space is nice (in spite of the stairs), especially with all the other people in the house. For the first time since high school, I'm sharing my abode with others; it's not that bad, really. My new wife and I have no problem sharing space, of course, and the house is big enough that the two kids and one grandkid sharing the house with us have their own private spaces. I don't even mind that the grandkid picked my office and my music room as his two favorite spaces; it's easy enough to close the doors when I don't want him in there.

While sharing the (bigger) space has worked out well, sharing stuff has proven more problematic. Quite frankly, I'm not used to sharing. It's not that I'm selfish (although I probably am), it's just that everything in my old house was my stuff -- I knew exactly what it was and where it was and no one else touched it. Not so anymore; it seems that everybody touches everything. I have to get used to that.

An example. In my old place, my kitchen refrigerator was filled almost exclusively with liquids. (I don't cook, so why buy food?) In the new place, the kitchen refrigerator is filled with food -- everybody's food. So we have a spare refrigerator in the garage for liquids, and I get half of one very short shelf in the main refrigerator for my personal stuff (still mostly liquids). Is that too much to ask, half of one shelf? But still, half the time someone has put something on my half a shelf, typically some sort of baby food or yogurt container. Can I not have my space?

But that's a minor thing. We've spent a lot of time and money fixing up the place to be our place. It's a massive house with a great big great room, complete with 20 foot ceilings and a floor-to-ceiling custom fireplace. We ended up buying almost all new furniture for the place, and splitting my old home theater system in two to service two different floors. I like my new music room, which is enough bigger than my old one to finally let me be comfortable. We got rid of the previous owner's basement bar setup and replaced it with built-in bookshelves for a nice little library, and we're in the process of setting up a 125 gallon saltwater aquarium. Lots of money for all this, but I like to get everything out of the way at once -- if I want it done, I want it done now, not a year or two from now.

All this (plus the wedding and honeymoon) has occupied a lot of my time, hence the lack of posting. In addition, I've had to get used to living in Minnesota, the land where winter never stops. (They're talking about snow flurries tomorrow -- on April 26th!) It was nice, however, when the main snowpack melted and we finally got a chance to see the yard we purchased. It's a big half-acre, which means lots of mowing and such this summer. Fortunately, we got a riding lawnmower as part of the deal, and it has a cupholder, so that should work out okay.

In any case, I'm trying to hone my Minnesota accent and learning to drive under the speed limit (something no one in Indiana ever does). The populace is stereotypically nice up here, and they've made the move easier. So has my wife, of course -- she being the reason I moved up here in the first place. I think I like it.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Dusty

There seems to be a resurgence of interest in Dusty Springfield of late, in particular her landmark 1969 album, Dusty in Memphis. This is good.

Dusty in Memphis was a great album; it's on my top five all-time album list. That's due in part to Dusty's sensual white soul vocals, of course, but also due to the choice of material. This was back in the day when singers didn't feel obligated to write their own material, which meant they chose songs from professional songwriters -- almost always of a higher caliber than that from non-trained writers. In Dusty's case, she had a knack for choosing first-rate songs from the top songwriters of the day. Or maybe the top songwriters singled her out for their best tunes. Whatever the case, one can't argue the results.

On Dusty in Memphis one finds tunes by Burt Bacharach and Hal David ("In the Land of Make Believe"), Carole King and Gerry Goffin ("So Much Love," "Don't Forget About Me," "No Easy Way Down," "I Can't Make It Alone"), Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil ("Just a Little Lovin'", Randy Newman ("Just One Smile," "I Don't Want to Hear It Anymore"), and Alan and Marilyn Bergman with Michel Legrand ("Windmills of Your Mind"). Plus the superb "Son of a Preacher Man" (by John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins) and "Breakfast in Bed" (Eddie Hinton and Donnie Fritts). Not a ringer among them.

Among all these great songs, my personal favorite is Newman's "I Don't Want to Hear It Anymore," which is just heartbreaking. Of course, Dusty delivers on the heartbreak, just as she does on the sweet seduction of "Breakfast in Bed" and the sublime Southern sexuality of "Son of a Preacher Man." For a white chick from England, she had a lot of soul.

Believe it or not, we're coming up on the 40th anniversary of Dusty in Memphis; the album was released in 1969 to much fanfare but disappointing sales. Like many of pop music's best works, Dusty in Memphis gained stature over the years, eventually being recognized for the classic that it is. I expect we can see some sort of special 40th anniversary re-release next year, complete with alternate takes, bonus tracks, and a long-lost recording of Dusty putting on her mascera. While I welcome a remastered version, I'm not all that hot on "expanded" versions of classic albums; I want to hear the album as it was originally released, not tarnished by unwanted bonus tracks. If you have bonuses, put them on a separate disc; let the original album end as it was intended.

Perhaps it's the pending anniversary which has inspired the current attention to Dusty and her landmark album. It started last year, with Breakfast in Bed, a somewhat overlooked CD by Joan Osborne that was obviously inspired by Dusty and Dusty in Memphis. I found that CD ultimately disappointing, despite the choice of material and Osborne's inspired vocals; the production and arrangements had too much of a 2000-era sheen and approach instead of the classic understated accompaniment that the collection of soul tunes required.

A much better tribute is Shelby Lynne's Just a Little Lovin', just released to much publicity and acclaim. I've been a Shelby Lynne fan since her extraordinary 2000 CD, I Am Shelby Lynne, and this new album cements her reputation as a Dusty-insprired songstress. On this album she takes several songs from Dusty in Memphis, along with a selection of other Dusty tunes, and makes them her own. The album has a Norah Jones-type vibe; the instrumentation is laid back and stripped down, which lets Lynne's sultry vocals come to the forefront. It's a worthy tribute to a great vocalist and a great album, yet more than stands on its own as a showcase for one of today's most talented artists.

As with the original Dusty in Memphis, of course, much of the appeal of Just a Little Lovin' lies in its selection of quality material; again, all the best songwriters of the 1960s are represented. Great songs sung by a great singer; that will always be a winning combination.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Archer

Right now I'm a happy man. One of the reasons I'm happy is that Vintage Crime/Black Lizard has just re-released two more long-out-of-print Ross Macdonald novels, The Doomsters and The Barbarous Coast. This follows the re-release back in July of The Ivory Grin and The Way Some People Die. It's almost criminal that these and several other Macdonald novels have been out of print so long, in some cases close to twenty years. These are classic American detective fiction, but more than that; they are books that bridged the genre gap into actual literary fiction.

Ross Macdonald (real name: Kenneth Millar) was the third of the seminal Big Three writers in the hard-boiled detective genre. First came Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man), who established the form from its roots in the pulp magazines of the day. He was followed by Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely), who combined Hammett's hard-boiled nature with a not-so-subtle romanticism. But it was Macdonald, through his alter ego Lew Archer, who added a psychological dimension to the standard detective thriller and turned it into true literature.

Unlike Hammett's all-business Continental Op or Chandler's slumming angel Philip Marlowe, Macdonald's Lew Archer was as much psychologist or father confessor as he was a hard-boiled private detective. Archer was compelled to get to the reasons why the crime was committed, even if that took him back multiple generations within a family.

As a critic once noted, Macdonald's books aren't so much who-dunnits as why-dunnits. Starting with 1959's The Galton Case, Macdonald probed the psychological depths of cross-generational family sagas; the sins of the father (or mother) were often visited on or repeated by the son (or daughter). Archer wasn't necessarily out to bring the criminal to justice or to avenge the victim, but to discover the truth and perhaps bring a little peace to the current generation. As Macdonald had Archer say in one of his cases, "I have a secret passion for mercy. But justice is what keeps happening to people."

I find the Lew Archer novels to be among my favorite novels, period -- no genre qualification necessary. I'd put Sleeping Beauty, The Underground Man, or The Goodbye Look up against anything from Hemingway or Steinbeck; they have the depth and intelligence and heart of true literature. I tend to reread two or three Macdonald books every year; having some previously unread (and hard-to-find) books re-released makes for a joyous occasion, in my book.

It's a shame, however, that Macdonald hasn't stayed in the eye of the reading public the same way that Hammett and Chandler have. Perhaps it's because there hasn't really been a faithful film adaption of Macdonald's best works; the slightly off-kilter Harper and The Drowning Pool (in which Paul Newman changed Lew Archer to Lew Harper and played him in an uncharacteristic rakish fashion) don't have the visceral impact of the movie versions of The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep -- two of the best movie mysteries (and most faithful adaptions) ever. (And, I suppose, Paul Newman is no Humphrey Bogart.) Of course, Macdonald's books are so layered that it may be impossible to condense them for the screen. In any case, it's a shame that so many of Macdonald's books have been out-of-print for so long. (Fortunately, Macdonald's final book, The Blue Hammer, along with The Instant Enemy, are due to be re-released on April 8, 2008 -- place your Amazon orders now!)

(The fact that Macdonald was the logical successor to Hammett and Chandler begs the question who was the successor to Macdonald. Some have granted Robert B. Parker that honor; as much as I love Parker and Spenser, his fictional creation, I'm less convinced over time of the heritage. More likely, there is no natural successor to Hammett; with the end of the Archer books, the detective genre splintered into multiple sub-genres and authors, each worthy on their own merits but none advanced the entire genre as the Big Three had.)

All that said, having two "new" Macdonald books to read makes me very happy. I hope you share in my delight by going out and purchasing your own copies of The Doomsters and The Barbarous Coast -- as well as special ordering any other book from Macdonald's distinguished catalog.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

At War

President Bush likes to justify everything he does by reminding us that America is "at war." Just this week he used that phrase to attack Democrats in Congress who are opposing both his nomination for attorney general and his requests for additional military spending:

"Politicians who deny that we are at war are either being disingenuous or naive. Either way, it is dangerous for our country. We are at war, and we cannot win this war by wishing it away or pretending it does not exist."

Those are the president's words, not mine. Because, you see, I don't think we're at war -- and I'm neither disingenuous or naive.

Yes, our troops are in a war zone in Iraq and thousands of them have been killed as a result. But just because a few hundred thousand troops have been injected into a foreign country's civil war doesn't mean that the country of America is at war with that country, or those individual factions that are warring between themselves. If we're truly at war, who do we surrender to if we lose? Who surrenders to us if we win? In fact, what does winning mean?

If America was at war, you and I here on the home front would know it. We'd have food and gasoline rationing; our factories would be converted to churning out munitions instead of Mustangs. More noticeable would be the draft; millions of our sons and daughters would be conscripted by the military. Every family in America would be affected.

But none of those things are happening. There is no rationing, there is no draft. The average American feels not one whit of hardship over this so-called "war" we're in. Our country is not being attacked; our country is not in peril. This is a military action of convenience, not a war of survival.

Perhaps the president, when he refers to us being "at war," is not referring to the action in Iraq, but rather what he has variously called the "war on terrorists," "war on terrorism," or "war on Islamofascism." These are "wars" like the "war on drugs" is a war, wars perhaps of ideas but not of realities. After all, terrorism is but a tactic, and one cannot go to war against a tactic. In addition, we're not fighting all terrorists, only those who might be targeting our country; we're not arming to defeat those using terrorist tactics in Northern Ireland, for example.

As to the so-called war on Islamofascism, I don't even know what that is or who they are. More to the point, I don't see any of these people, whoever they are, organizing to attack our country en masse. Maybe a few foot soldiers here and there, but that seems to be more of a criminal action than a military one. Where are the troops invading our shores? I don't see them.

Is America under attack? My neighborhood isn't, and neither is yours. Yes, there was the single deadly attack six years ago in New York, but that's all it was. It wasn't another country invading ours; it wasn't Hitler storming into Poland. It was an isolated action by a small group of international criminals -- whose leader, BTW, our incompetent government still hasn't caught and brought to justice.

Bottom line, America is not at war. Some of our troops may be in a war zone in Iraq, but that does not justify the sweeping powers President Bush seems to feel a "war president" is entitled to. He is no more a "war president" than I am King of All That is Right. So let's dispense with the nonsense language and view things as they are -- not as Bush and Cheney would like to pretend they might be.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Postal

I live in Carmel, a suburb north of Indianapolis, and the Carmel post office is a big one and a good one. Busy sometimes, as you might expect, but even long lines move fast when they have all 4 main counter positions and the auxiliary Postal Store counter open. (Especially when Joe, the guy who looks like Radar O'Reilly, is working; he's twice as fast as the other employees.)

So I had no problems with my post office. Some people complained at the lines around Christmas, but what do you expect? It was a pretty good setup.

Emphasis on the word "was."

Last year, the post office decided to augment the normal counter workers with two automated postal machines. No big deal; just two extra ways to get the job done. People don't use the machines much, of course, because they prefer the human interaction. Plus the human beings are faster than the machines. Still, nice to have the option if you wanted it.

But that wasn't good enough for the United States Postal Service. Last month they took out two counter positions and replaced them with two more of those infernal automated postal machines. Not augmented -- replaced. So now there are two fewer human beings to deal with, and two more mostly unused postal machines.

I asked Joe if people were really using the machines, and he replied, "They'll have to." That's customer service for you -- give the customers more of what they don't want. Now the lines to the human beings will be twice as along, while a lone manager stands next to the unused machines imploring customers to use them. Which we won't, because we don't like them. We like the reassurance of dealing with a human being, as opposed to the uncertainty of dealing with a machine. Plus, as I've noted, in this particular instance a good employee is much faster than these machines. Why use something that's slower and inspires less confidence?

Because the Postal Service wants to cut costs, is why. Fuck customer service, let's cut costs! (And still increase the price of stamps, of course.) Now people will have a real reason to complain when they're waiting in the now-longer lines at Christmastime. Good job, USPS. Maybe I'll start shipping more items out via FedEx.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.