All posts by Lars Walker

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Mary Tyler Moore (1936-2017)

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Mary Tyler Moore

Years ago, a friend of mine told me he’d met Mary Tyler Moore in connection with his business. I realized at that point that that was pretty much my personal definition of Making It In Life – getting to meet Mary Tyler Moore. I never did, of course.

I remember when the Mary Tyler Moore Show began. I was away at college, and I’d read in the paper that she was doing a situation comedy set in Minneapolis. “Well that’s bound to bomb,” I said. “Nothing set in Minnesota ever succeeds. Look at the Twins.”

Not for the first time, I was spectacularly wrong. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a monster hit, back in the days when the whole country watched just three networks. It was a new thing – a character-driven comedy, the harbinger of a series of great shows that followed, two with Bob Newhart, Cheers, Taxi, WKRP in Cincinnati, etc. I don’t think they do such shows anymore.

In the Twin Cities, we can’t help but think of her as one of our own. She put us on the map, in a new cultural way. There’s a statue of her throwing her tam in the air on the Nicollet Mall (though I believe they moved it recently, and I don’t know if it’s been returned to the spot. I don’t get to the Mall much anymore. It’s pretty Mary Tyler Moribund).

She got her big break with The Dick Van Dyke Show. According to the story, the project began as a vehicle for Carl Reiner, who played the TV writer husband living in New Rochelle, NY. But the pilot failed, and Reiner was humble enough to accept audience feedback that said they just didn’t like him in the role. So they cast a rising young comic named Dick Van Dyke in his place. As they searched for an actress to play the wife, producer Danny Thomas remembered a girl he’d auditioned as his daughter on his own show. She was great, but he thought nobody would ever believe a girl with such a tiny little nose could be his daughter (Sherry Jackson got the part). They auditioned Mary, and the rest is legend.

She had a copyright on “adorable.” In the years since her two big series, she was active in a number of causes, including campaigning for fetal stem cell research (she was a diabetic). She also did the pro-suicide play “Whose Life Is It, Anyway?” on Broadway.

But pretty girls get a break with me. And nobody was prettier than her. Few brought more joy through their work either. RIP.

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He done her wrong, but not that way

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Atlas Obscura is fascinating blog. Recently they examined the common belief that old silent movies used to show women put in peril by being tied to railroad tracks by villains. Turns out it never happened — except in parody.

This sort of train-based peril became a regular element of the melodramas as a cheap and easy way to create suspense. Moving into the early-20th century, and the silent film era, many films took their cues from those same 19th-century stage dramas. One of the more famous examples of this type of story was the serial The Perils of Pauline, which saw the titular heroine encounter all kinds of scoundrels and villains each week, who would put her in life-threatening danger—although it is important to note that she was never tied to the railroad tracks. This sort of overblown adventure tale became a well-known story type in its time, but that melodramatic style also inspired some comedies, which spoofed some of the more overused elements of the genre.

Read it all here.

Authors, Uncategorized

Landmarks and visions

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Landmark Center
The Landmark Center in St. Paul. Photo 2005 by Mulad.

The old US post office, custom house, and court house in St. Paul, built in 1902 and home to much graft and corruption in its time, is now called Landmark Center. They’re a little more tolerant of architectural treasures in that city than in Minneapolis, so it was saved from the wrecking ball and now exists as a cultural center. Once a month they host events for various ethnic groups. This month (yesterday) it was the Danes, and we Vikings were asked to man a table for the event. Three of us showed up. We had a pretty good time.

Lots of visitors, and lots of questions, many from children, which is always nice. I was able to explain how people got the idea that Viking helmets had horns, and how chain mail was made. Sold a couple books and several bits of leather work.

One of the best parts was that we were right next to the aebelskiver stand. Aebelskivers are Danish pancakes, formed by secret and occult methods into spheres. They’re generally served with powdered sugar and strawberry preserves. Delightful.

I also had the pleasure, over the weekend, of receiving another tip from Dave Lull. He remembered that I’m fond of the late D. Keith Mano, and he alerted me to a reprint of one of Mano’s old columns over at the National Review. They’re going to be publishing a series of them over the next few weeks. This one concerns a series of visions of the Virgin Mary in Bayside, Queens, New York back in 1975. Mano describes his “investigation” in bemused and gentle terms.

The church of St. Robert Bellarmine—now half school, half gym—stands two blocks up. There used to be a statue on the corner: large copy of those Virgins in telephone booths that wait outside Catholic houses. Veronica had her first visions here. But, as crowds grew, an unsympathetic Mother Church had the statue sledgehammered away. So much for mariolatry. You can still see the pedestal stump, cordoned off by wooden snow fencing.

It occurred to me to do a web search on Dave Lull. Turns out he’s not merely a reader of this blog, which would be enough to adorn the fame of any man. He’s a librarian (thus one of nature’s noblemen) and a facilitator of blogs. Blogless himself, he sends tips like this to a number of book bloggers.

I am honored to be among that number.

Religion

Denying Christ, with a smile

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A while back I wrote a post in which I predicted, somewhat audaciously, that the mainline Protestant churches will eventually convert en masse to Islam, since social pressure will be great, and their current beliefs about Jesus aren’t really that different from those of Muslims.

An intelligent commenter who called him/herself “MainlineProtestantWhoLovesJesus” objected that I was caricaturing the mainline churches, and oversimplifying.

In rebuttal, I offer the video at this link (I can’t find a way to embed it).

If you don’t care to click the link, let me summarize. This is a video produced officially by the very liberal United Church of Christ. In it, three smiling clergypeople — a UCC minister, a rabbi, and an imam — switch their vestments. Then they preach in the others’ houses of worship. Their sermons are exactly the same. All the listeners are pleased.

The video ends with the message, “The things that unite us are greater than the things that divide us.”

They do not note (or do not care) that the major thing that divides us from Muslims and Jews is Jesus Christ, risen Savior and Lord.

The inescapable message is that to them, Jesus Christ is a secondary “thing.”

That is plain apostasy.

Now explain to me how a church that believes this way will never convert to Islam.

Religion

Extinction is relative

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Yesterday I ran across some remarks by philosopher of science Michael Hanby that contrast the understanding we discern in Shakespeare with the attitudes common on university campuses today.

Hanby says, “Your final philosophical options come down to two. Either there is a word, or a logos, at the foundation of reality, so that reality is inherently intelligible and meaningful, and therefore there are natures, forms, that persist in spite of the flux of history and time; or, reality is fundamentally meaningless, and meaning is kind of an epiphenomenal construct superimposed upon it.”

To take a familiar example of the second alternative mentioned by Hanby: In today’s colleges of education, constructionism is common. Colleges of education may require that all faculty teach according to constructionism. Constructionism holds that the world is meaningless except insofar as human beings make/devise/construct meaning. Before the appearance of human beings like ourselves, there was no meaning. Today it is obvious, constructionism says, that humans do make meanings. However, the meanings that they make can’t be confirmed by an appeal to objective, perennial truth because there never was such a thing.

The passage above comes from a short article written by the English professor friend I mentioned yesterday. I won’t print his name here because he has to live and work in the academic world, but I quote him with his permission.

I think I might have given an unfair impression in what I wrote about relativists yesterday. I may have suggested that I thought that such people cannot love. That is, of course, unfair. They are our fellow human beings; they have the same passions as the rest of us. They love their lovers and their children and their families. They thrill to great music and literature. They grieve over disappointed hopes, and over the deaths of friends and loved ones.

Their problem (it seems to me) is that they don’t know what to do with those passions. Look at what my friend wrote above. The relativist thinks that his love for people or things is something he himself created, somewhat arbitrarily. He feels that such feelings are right, but he can’t give a reason why they are better than feelings of hate, other than that they have social utility. But who is to say that social utility itself is good? Continue reading Extinction is relative →

Religion

The lonely relativist

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That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. (1 John 1:1-4, ESV)

The moment someone says, “The Lord said to me…” or “The Lord moved me to…” do this or that, a great skepticism descends upon my spirit. For that reason, the fact that I feel that God told me to post something on this blog tonight suggests to me that I’m probably deeply wrong in some way. But let’s run with it and see how it goes.

Last night’s post was OK as far as it went, but I felt that I hadn’t been clear enough on the reasons for my Second Refusal – the refusal to adopt a relativistic world view. And I’m reading a very long book right now, so I won’t have a review to do for a few days. So I thought I’d say more about relativism, and why it’s so deadly.

And then I opened my Bible for devotions this morning, and there was the passage I’ve transcribed above. And I thought, “This is exactly what I want to write about.”

And then I got an email from a friend who teaches at a state university, discussing “constructionism,” the relativistic literary-critical theory that reigns supreme at most institutions of higher learning today. And I thought, “This is exactly what I want to write about.”

So I thought maybe I ought to write about it. Could be mistaken.

The problem with relativism (by which I mean the dogmatic belief that everything is relative. Some things really are relative, of course), as I see it, is that it’s essentially solipsistic. The postmodern relativist is not sure that anything exists, except himself (and he’s not entirely sure of that). Continue reading The lonely relativist →

Religion

Two rejections

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I seem to have stirred up a very small tempest with my review yesterday. The author of the book I reviewed (who seems to be a splendid guy) linked to my review on Facebook, and his fans went into a minuscule feeding frenzy. A couple of them even commented here. One concluded that because I believe that “truth is one,” I must be opposed to freedom of religion. This is a common misconception, especially among liberals. They assume that, like them, we on our side wish to criminalize all ideas we disagree with.

Easy mistake to make, in the hall of mirrors that is the modern world.

I wanted to re-state and elaborate on what I wrote last night. I have two arguments, each of which involves a Great Rejection.

I reject the idea of connecting religious truth to race or ethnicity in any way (except for the special calling of the Jews, a unique case and not exactly a privilege). If truth is different depending on the color of your skin, then the races will never be reconciled, because people of one race are essentially different – at their very core – from people of all other races. If truth depends on race, segregated churches are a good thing.

Christianity has rejected this idea from its very beginnings (read Acts 10).

It would seem to follow from this argument that I’m accusing my opponents of being racists. I actually think that very unlikely. They are almost certainly not racists. They are either a) unthinking, or b) relativist.

Most modern people don’t actually think their ideas through. They absorb, from TV, movies, and web sites, what the culture tells them to think, and they think that (to the extent that they think at all). Especially if it feels good. The idea of ethnic religion – when applied to minorities – feels broadminded and multicultural. So they adopt it, without worrying about the implications.

Others consider the issue of truth irrelevant. They believe that there are many truths. Your truth may not be my truth, and therefore black or red truth can be different from white truth. Everybody’s truth is equally good. And if the truths contradict one another, well, you just say that because you’re Eurocentric (“white truth” is considered slightly less true than the others).

I have always rejected the view that ultimate truth is relative. I will continue to reject it, God willing, until the day I die.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Season’s Revenge,’ by Henry Kisor

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Season's Revenge

I hate it when I encounter a writer who’s good in himself, and even gracious in his attitudes, but still feel obligated to turn from his work for ideological reasons. So let’s get it out of the way at the beginning. Henry Kisor is a fine writer, and Season’s Revenge is a pretty good rural mystery. My reason for stopping after the first book in his Steve Martinez series is that I’m an ideologue, and I prefer to stay away from books written from certain points of view. To the extent that you find my attitude narrow-minded, you are likely to like Kisor’s books. In that case, I heartily recommend them to you.

Steve Martinez is a sheriff’s deputy in fictional Porcupine County, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In spite of his name, he’s Lakota Sioux by heritage, and was raised by white evangelical Christians, who died while he was young. He ended up in Porcupine County, with which he had no previous ties, more or less by chance. In other words, he feels somewhat disconnected in the world.

One day in early winter the richest man in the county is found dead in his camping tent, mauled by a bear. The coroner’s verdict is heart attack, caused by shock. But Steve is skeptical. Why did this man, an accomplished outdoorsman, commit a rookie error like eating breakfast in his tent, where bacon grease could spill and lure a bear in? Continue reading ‘Season’s Revenge,’ by Henry Kisor →

Fiction, Reviews

‘Who is Conrad Hirst?’ by Kevin Wignall

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Who is Conrad Hirst?

Call it conscience, if you will; all I know is that it’s a sadness for which I’m profoundly grateful, no less than if my sight had been restored to me after years of blindness. What overtook me yesterday was a longing to be the person I once was.

Conrad Hirst, titular hero of Kevin Wignall’s Who Is Conrad Hirst?, is a professional hit man. He works (or so he thinks) for a German crime boss. Years ago he stumbled into the profession after a devastating personal loss and time spent as a mercenary. He has been good at his job because he felt nothing, and because he displayed so little personality that people tended to overlook him.

But now he’s had a shock. “I saw myself in a mirror,” is how he describes it. He wants out. He wants to stop being this person.

His exit strategy seems clear. Because of the compartmentalized nature of the organization he works for, only four men know who he is – all of them bad men. He’ll just kill them and walk away with a clean slate.

Of course it’s not that easy. He soon discovers that he isn’t working for the people he thinks he’s working for, and a whole lot more people know about him than he guessed. He keeps on the move, improvising as he goes, trying to figure out who his real boss is and to eliminate him. As he goes, he makes an effort to overcome the bad habit he’s acquired – killing inconvenient people. When most of us slip in our efforts to end a bad habit, the results aren’t that devastating. When Conrad slips, people die.

The moral contradictions of being a professional killer are boldly explored in Who Is Conrad Hirst? What is a hero? What is a villain? There are truly distressing moments – lots of them – when we bounce back and forth between sympathizing with Conrad, and hoping someone will just kill him and put him and everybody else out of his misery.

Who Is Conrad Hirst? is a fascinating, troubling book, like all Kevin Wignall’s work. I salute the author’s focus on questions of human choice and moral reformation, though I think he gives more credit to human nature (unassisted by divine grace) than it deserves.

Also, there’s a very neat twist at the end.

Highly recommended, with cautions for violence, language, and extremely shocking situations.

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Death in Sweden,’ by Kevin Wignall

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A Death in Sweden

Inger said something under her breath in Swedish, something affectionate, brought on by the sight of the old man. And Dan understood the sentiment even if he hadn’t understood or even heard the words properly, because it was reassuring after a day like they’d had, to be reminded that there were good things in the world, and good people, simple food cooked well, strangers sharing their kindness indiscriminately. Dan had been outside that virtuous circle himself for most of his adult life, but he was grateful to be inside it now.

In northern Sweden, a lumber truck crashes into a passenger bus. Only one person survives, a teenage girl. A fellow passenger, a stranger, had thrown himself on top of her to save her life.

That’s how A Death in Sweden starts. Dan Hendricks, an Englishman but a former CIA operative, now makes his living as a sort of bounty hunter for various employers, some governments, some less legitimate. Doing a job in Madrid, he gets word that several of his colleagues are dead. Shortly after, he and a friend barely escape a hit squad. It becomes clear that someone powerful is liquidating a particular group of intelligence freelancers. Dan’s old boss asks him to go to Sweden to investigate Jacques Fillon, the man who saved the girl’s life on the bus. Jacques Fillon was not his real name, and his boss thinks he is the key to the motivation for the vendetta.

Dan goes to the town, where a Swedish agent, Inger Bengtsson, joins the investigation. As they pry into Fillon’s secrets (fending off more than one assassination attempt as they do), they grow closer to each other. This is something Dan wasn’t prepared for, having cut himself off from ordinary human life for far too long.

As in his other novels, Kevin Wignall trains a spotlight on an aspect of intelligence work that is generally passed over lightly in spy novels – the morality of killing. Again he paints a portrait of men who have reached moments of clarity, who have had to reevaluate not only their professions, but their very approaches to life. Again he contrasts profound human feeling and relationships with the kind of injury a professional killer must do to his own soul. Choice is at the center.

Another very satisfying, though often harrowing, novel by Kevin Wignall. Recommended, if you can handle the violence, language, and adult themes. Like all Wignall’s books, it’s not for the faint of heart.