Another Viking from my group posted this video of us on Facebook. It’s not one he made; he found it somewhere. I’m not entirely sure who made it, but it’s very well done.

You’ll note that I “kill” Ragnar in the first fight. A phenomenon that rare deserves to be memorialized on film.

Watched the movie, The Hangover last night. I’d heard a lot about how hilarious it is.

Well, it’s funny. I laughed (snorted, actually) in a couple places. But mostly I found it distasteful.

It purports to be an affirmation of manhood and male bonding, in the face of a feminizing culture.

But that affirmation of manhood is actually an affirmation of boyhood. These men aren’t asserting their right to their status as men. They’re asserting their right to be irresponsible and make idiots of themselves. As if that’s what being a man is about.

I was particularly troubled by the attitude of the father of the bride (played by the great Jeffrey Tambor), who sends the bridegroom off to his Vegas bachelor party with a serious, fatherly speech that says, “Remember, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”

What kind of father is that? What kind of father will his son-in-law be?

Yeah, I’ve achieved fuddy-duddy status at last.

My creative juices are a little clotted tonight, so I’ll fall back on an old standby—a family photo from my scan collection, one which apparently sat in the sun too long at some point in its history, getting badly faded out.

Analysis:

This one isn’t strictly a family picture. It’s a photograph (dated around 1930, I’d guess) of the class at a country school, containing at least one of my family members. The second girl from the right on the bottom row is my aunt Corene, I think. Though it could be Aunt Jeannie. But I think it’s Corene.

The thing is, I had the idea my dad was in this picture. But it’s hard to pick him out. The little boy second from the left in that same bottom row might be him, but the hair looks a little dark (Dad was extremely blond). The story I recall is that the picture also includes, among other people, the girl who someday would be the mother of a guy who was my college roommate for a while, years later. But I don’t recall which girl it is.

I also recognize the two boys on the right in the middle row. Not as individuals, but by their family. They were neighbors of ours, and the face genes ran strong among them.

Actually, saying they were neighbors is redundant. This was a country school, built on the old Northwest Ordinance principle by which one section of land in each township was sold to pay for a school, which the kids in the township would attend. As you probably know, it was a one-room operation, in which the older kids and the younger kids all sat in class together. There are those who argue to this day that that setup was actually a benefit to all concerned. The younger kids had the older kids to help them, and the older kids got to help teaching, which is one of the best ways to learn.

You’ll note that almost all the boys are wearing bib overalls. A very practical garment for boys, those were. They cover the most vulnerable parts of the shirt (except, of course, for the elbows), preventing stains and wear. Oddly, although I grew up on a farm, and my dad wore them all the time, I don’t recall ever wearing one myself. There is, however, an old picture of me as a toddler in a small pair.

If I’d been born only a few years earlier, I’d have gone to this school. It was only about a half a mile from our farm, and was still standing, abandoned, when I was a kid. A friend of mine lived on that farm, and we sometimes went inside and goofed around.

Our township schools around Kenyon consolidated just a couple years before I started, so I went to the “new” school in town while it was still pretty new. It was a light-colored, one-story brick affair built in a U shape,with two wings branching off a central administrative section. I suspect somebody thought we kids would play in the space between the wings, but we almost never did, and the teachers didn’t encourage it. Too many windows there. The building was state of the art, equipped with the green chalkboards that, all the best minds agreed, would streamline the learning process and put us years ahead of the Russians. Each room was equipped with an asbestos fire blanket, I recall.

I don’t remember any of my classmates ever wearing bib overalls to school. That age had passed.

Every Thursday I get a copy of my home town newspaper, The Kenyon Leader, in the mail. It doesn’t take me long to read it. It wouldn’t in fact take long if I read it all through, but generally I just go to the back page and look at the obituaries, to see if any more of my classmates have died. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was reading about the deaths of my friends’ parents, but now it’s mostly us. Not that we didn’t lose some surprisingly early—a statistically significant number, it seems to me. There was the girl with juvenile diabetes who excelled at playing the piano (she was the first to go), and the most popular guy in class with the girls (whom I envied intensely); he died in Vietnam. And the foreign-born boy who was only with us the last couple years, and never quite fit in. I forget what he died of. The big, tall guy with the Czechoslovakian name we used to tease about being a “bohonk” (but admitted to our circle of friends, a group I personally consider the elite). I don’t recall how he died either. Another guy dropped dead of a heart attack in California, apparently without warning. All within the first decade. I may have forgotten some. Our original strength was only 68 people, mind you.

Come to think of it, I think the rate of death has actually slowed down in the last decade or so. Those of us who’ve made it this far seem likely to last a little longer.

No classmates died in time for this issue, but there was a death of sorts. Our old high school building suffered a major fire. Arson is suspected. Continue reading Old school →

First page of the Beowulf manuscript.

Andrew Klavan has read Beowulf, and he wrote an essay on it for an anthology called Thrillers: 100 Must Reads. As would be expected from a writer of Klavan’s sensibilities, he gets the point entirely:

We in the modern West have been so powerful, so dominant, so safe in our homes for so long that we slip too easily into the illusion that we live at peace. We are never at peace, not really. When we go to the ballet or walk in the park or stop to smell a rose or read a book, we only do so by the good graces of the fighters who stand ready to kill and die to defend us. Soldiers on our borders, police officers on our streets—only the threat of their physical force keeps those who would murder, rob, or enslave us at bay. Every moment of tranquility and freedom implies the warrior who protects it. The world of Beowulf is the real world.

Read it all.

There’s big archaeological news today. A collection of about 70 ancient books, written on lead sheets bound with lead rings, has appeared in Israel (Jordan claims that they came originally from its territory, and is trying to get them back). Written in coded Hebrew, they appear to be the oldest extant Christian documents, and scholars are eager to examine them (if they ever get out of court.)

The director of the Jordan’s Department of Antiquities, Ziad al-Saad, says the books might have been made by followers of Jesus in the few decades immediately following his crucifixion.

“They will really match, and perhaps be more significant than, the Dead Sea Scrolls,” says Mr Saad.

“Maybe it will lead to further interpretation and authenticity checks of the material, but the initial information is very encouraging, and it seems that we are looking at a very important and significant discovery, maybe the most important discovery in the history of archaeology.”

This will be cool.

Of course it’s always fun until Opus Dei sends in its paid assassins.

Kidding! Kidding!

(Tip: Cronaca.)

Abbie Riddle of Abbie Reviews gives my West Oversea a glowing review here.

And I got an invitation to lecture on another Norway cruise today. Of course this kind of lecturing is only for the financially flush, which I no longer am, so I politely declined. But it’s nice to know I don’t have a black spot next to my name in the Great Ledger. (Or, alternatively, they may just be very, very desperate for lecturers. Maybe the armadillo juggler got sick.)