Min Tull. Sunday. September 23. 2018

There's this guy, see, named Karl Ove  Knausgard, who's a long-winded Norwegian author. He just finished part six of his super boring novel cycle Min Kamp (My Struggle -- yeah, yeah, like Hitler's Mine Kampf.) The books are all about the 'banalities and humiliations' of his life. Which makes it a best seller in Norway. Norwegians are a clannish, nosy, bunch -- who would rather go through their neighbor's trash than travel to see the Pyramids in Egypt.

The above paragraph, I hope, will disabuse you of the notion that I have gone completely off the rails (again) because I, too, want to detail the daily, even hourly, minutiae of my current existence here in Provo, Utah. In the Valley Villas Senior Housing Complex, run by the Provo City Housing Authority. Where my rent is $250.00 per month, and my utilities are free. (Can't beat THAT with a stick.)

I will pause here because I want to splash my face with William's Lectric Shave and then run my Norelco over the stubble on my flabby cheeks and throat. A daily man ritual I used to abhor but now love like the slow movement of a Beethoven symphony. (By golly, this is going to be a much more classier piece of dreck than I originally thought!)

Splashing William's Lectric Shave upon my flabby cheeks
has become a ritual that with bravura reeks.
Because so many people now in offices and rooms
claim they cannot stand the scent of shampoo and perfumes.
Be damned to them, I do assert; their noses are awry.
Those hypochondriacs, like hares, just seem to multiply.
And if this seems a heartless rant, a thing of Trumpish mein, 
I will admit that I enjoy the venting of my spleen.
But truth be told if all the world were drowned some in Old Spice,
I think Afghanis would behave and Russians would make nice. 

(Joseph Palazollo, a reporter with the Wall Street Journal, replied to the above verses thus:  This is wonderful. I agree: Old Spice could solve a lot of seemingly intractable global issues. 

I always hate it when Amy is right about me. Once on the eve of our divorce she quoted Phillipians 3:19 at me during an unnerving confrontation in our bishop's office -- the part that says " . . .Whose god is their belly . . . "  And she's perfectly right. I have much to say at this moment, but will chance forgetting each brilliant observation that might fall from my pen so I can go boil ramen noodles for 3 minutes, with an egg, and have some prunes and a V-8 with it at my desk while I read the new Church history book "The Standard of Truth." Who knows? I may never come back to this particular piece of drivel again, and leave it in limbo as a blog draft.

10:12 a.m.
Heard an American Robin's querulous cry just now while I was watering and feeding my goldfish (I keep them in a round plastic sled out on my patio -- there's five right now; I started with ten but half have died off or been carried away by the darn neighborhood cats.)

the robin chanting
a vexed lone trill to itself,
not for my big ears

I'm writing against the clock right now. Every morning around ten my spirit and my senses collapse into a sort of rubble, and I have to lie down on my bed to recuperate. Usually for about an hour. It's due to my alleged hyperparathyroidism, which has not been diagnosed but only guessed at by my GP. He wants to send me to a glandular specialist, and now that I finally have Medicare I guess I can afford to go. If I can stop writing about myself long enough to make an appointment and call RideShare to take me to him (or her) and back. My writing is becoming more and more compulsive. But that's a sidebar at the moment. RideShare is another senior perk; they take me anywhere I want to go for $2.50 one way. I just have to call one day ahead to schedule a ride. And, in fact, they just mailed me a Free Ride letter for my birthday this month. Mmmmmm . . . how sweet it is! 

Before I melt into a puddle of bile and creative inanity I have to explain that last Sunday in Church Bishop Pack talked about everyone getting their own inspiration for their own lives. It struck me that lately I have not been asking for specific inspiration or revelation, only chanting a sort of rote of thanksgiving and praise, like giving a speech. So this past week I have been praying very specifically for revelations on what news stories to write verses about -- because it's been very hard for the past few months to find anything I want to write about. Even Trump has lost his shine. And, lo and behold, each day I found 3 news stories that tickled my fancy and gave me great pleasure in writing. So, if you're not a complete atheist or Democrat, you could say my prayers were answered. But then this morning as I was revolving in my mind where I might find some Sabbath stories to write about while stretching and scratching myself in bed it struck me forcefully that I don't need revelation to find news stories anymore. The Lord has granted unto me the ability to extract all the inspiration and irritation I need from my very own existence as lived 24 hours a day. Supremely egotistical, I know -- but there you are; most every revelation that I have ever laid claim to has been about something I already want to do and/or enjoy doing. I never get heavenly messages to do things that are boring or dangerous. If an angel came down right now and thundered at me: "Timothy, thou must do more Family History indexing, lest I smite thee!" I would calmly ask "Just what are my options here, exactly?"

And so, I was led to look up that Knausgard character on Wikipedia just to get my facts straight. He's now written over four thousand pages all about himself, his eczema, his cigarette habit, and a little teeny weeny bit about his family and about living in Norway. Narcissistic to the max, nu? ('Nu' is a Yiddishism that I am fond of using, like 'momser' and 'kvetch.') And that exact same self-involved obsession may just be my new writing motivation for the next several years -- until my reason, my fingers, and my internet connection gives out. 

10:46 a.m.  Headache. Backache. My eyes won't focus. I'm sick of writing this schlock. Time to rub some lavender oil on my wrists and recline on my Swedish memory foam mattress . . . 

11:21 a.m. Woke up with the hiccups. Must have used too much lavender oil.

A thought I had earlier today in Sacrament Meeting:
The best way to kill a joke is to wait 2 beats after it's been told and people are beginning to laugh and then ask "Whadjasay? I didn't hear it." It also makes the joke teller feel insignificant and superfluous. It happens to me all the time, since I am overmuch in the company of old deafies. I never bother to tell it again. And if someone presses me to repeat it I am much more likely to tell them to go to hell than anything else. I think if bile had any commercial value I could be the next Bill Gates. 

Time to get the brunswick stew, the cheese & crackers, and the fruit salad jello ready for the lobby, where I will serve it up to one and all. Drat these hiccups!

All the brunswick stew got eaten -- and I had to endure a half dozen jokes about 'did you put some squirrel in it?" I forced myself to chuckle indulgently the first time I heard that remark; after that I just grunted. I reckon about seven people had a bowl of it; the conversation in the lobby while everyone was eating was about K-rations, biltong, and how dangerous bats are because they have rabies. Many pointless stories were told about bats in garages, in apartments, and bats lurking outside in trees just waiting to swoop down and infect the innocent night stroller. All of the stories have been told before by the same people. Is it a good deed to encourage someone to repeat a rambling tale they've already told me, or should I tell them to shut up and get their dentures shellacked? Maybe Don Rickles had the right idea after all.

It's now 1:40 in the afternoon, and I have nothing to do for the rest of the day. No Church callings; no place to go; no hobby to fritter away my time. As I write this I know I want to start a pathetic lament over my Sabbath loneliness and feelings of uselessness. But somehow I just can't bring myself to get mushy. I feel feisty and combative, not abandoned and ignored. Must be that lavender oil.

I just got a Facebook friend request from some bozo named Paul Edelstein. Lemme go see who he is . . . 

He's single. He lives in Memphis. And he calls himself an artist at Shady Grove Presbyterian Church. He sounds like either a bot or a boob. I'll pass.

An old friend sent me a long email this afternoon. Among other things he wrote:

I suspect you lean more Republican than Democrat, but I think you think all politicians are bad and don't take sides  And you are a religious person and don't fit the xxxxxxx description.  So I respect your thoughts . . .

As far as I'm concerned, the only good Democrat is a Republican. I'm having some font trouble after copying that bit of email. I think I was in Arial and now I'm in Georgia.  I can't seem to get the font to default back to Arial. As Stymie said in an old Our Gang comedy: "This is getting monopolous!" 

I just recalled that when I was at the U of M back in 2002 I took a novel writing class that was taught by a TA, not a regular professor. He just had us start a novel of our own, and spent most of our two hour class time reading his own novel-in-progress; a dreary narrative set in Ohio about teenagers playing with their angst like monkeys playing with a bagpipe. I wrote a complete 300 page stream of consciousness novel for him, which he read chapter by chapter and praised to the skies. I turned the completed manuscript into him for my final grade, and the momser never returned it to me -- in fact, he took off without leaving a forwarding address. I never made a copy of the novel. So I guess that is my Lost Novel. It was about me as a clown falling in love with a showgirl on Ringling. What else? A year ago I found a manuscript tucked away in a Kinko's box -- a novel I wrote back in 1981 called "The Further Adventures of Elder West." A sequel to my very first novel, "The Vita-Goodie Lady," which my former brother-in-law Ben Anderson bought from me for $17 thousand. He never published it. I wonder if he still has it? Anyway, what washes all this gravel up right now is the question: Will this never-ending piece of bosh I am writing at the moment have any kind of narrative arc or closing? Who is the protagonist? Who is the antagonist? Where's all the sex? Why should anyone read this tripe if it holds no suspense or entertainment value? I guess readership will build simply to find out if I ever run out of steam while gassing about the minuscule thoughts and events of my dull as ditch water life.  

I'm gonna go look for something to snack on. 

3:42 p.m.  Had some Genoa salami, crackers, and a hunk of cheddar cheese while I stared at the goldfish out on my cement patio and drank a can of Mountain Dew. It's getting overcast and cool outside. Great weather for a stroll and taking pictures of the barely turning leaves, but the SIM card in my cheap digital camera is full and I'm still not done using the photos for haiku. So instead I'm gonna change the water in the plastic sled -- those goldfish are disgusting dung engines.

Then I'm watching a 1933 movie, Dancing Lady, with Joan Crawford and Clark Gable (and an early appearance by the Three Stooges.) It's available on YouTube for $2.99. After that I may come back to this troubling manuscript to add more insignificant details -- such as what YouTube movies I watched yesterday or who called me yesterday or maybe even statistics about my bowel movements. 

**********************************

First email response to Min Tull 1:

Google has absolutely no response I can select from.  So let me respond with a picture of my wife taking a picture of the sunrise this morning:

Another email response to this first chapter:

This is really quite engaging writing, especially considering the lack of anything like a plot (or narrative arc, as they say these days). The ending left me hanging--by which I mean, "hoping that your next installment is not about the last topic you mention." Apart from a bit of excess of bile and some strange comments about Democrats, I quite enjoyed this, especially the way you convey a vivid sense of the flow of life, along with some keen observations.

Actually, the comments about Democrats were just fine. They add some flavor and a bit of mystery (that is, mystery as to what your politics really are, if anything). 

China Kills Trade Talks With U.S. Amid Escalation in Tariff Threats

China scotched trade talks with the U.S. that were planned for the coming days, according to people briefed on the matter, further dimming prospects for resolving a trade battle between the world’s two largest economies.    WSJ 

In conf'rence rooms the talk has stopped,

as delegates all pretense dropped.

America and China sigh,

and despair of one more try;

the tariff talks have just plain flopped.

They are the dead, and so are we

if we don't change the history

of doltish leaders who contend

from their high horses to defend

outmoded economic scree.

Take up our cause with rectitude,

and do not sit around and brood.

Swallow pride (and Diazepam)

and find a way out of this sham.

If you break faith with common folk,

we'll take you down as we go broke!

where the creepers go

where the creepers go

I would like to go as well

to wave some green leaves

Njideka Akunyili Crosby -- James Bond -- Rude Politicians Gaining Acceptance from Men

Njideka Akunyili Crosby was painting in her high-raftered studio in Los Angeles in early 2017, when she got the text from a friend. Just a few years earlier, she had been selling works for $3,000 apiece. Now, one of her paintings had just sold at Christie’s in London for $3 million, more than six times its estimate.  WSJ

The price of art has me dismayed;

how can such giant sums be paid

for art still wet behind the ears

from painters in their early years?

Methinks the middlemen concerned

are looking for a gain unearned;

collectors, too, jack up the price

with bids as airy as puffed rice.

And I suspect the artist's cut

buys but one meal at Pizza Hut.

*********************************************

Now audiences watch — and often weigh in on — the entire filmmaking process as it plays out through news reports and social media postings. And that’s exactly what’s happening with the 25th installation in the James Bond franchise. Few movies demonstrate the sheer public nature of today’s blockbuster-making process better than the unreleased movie.  WaPo

Movies become such big news,

with so many long interviews,

that you just might think

we've come to the brink

of battle again on the Meuse.

*********************************

But while three-quarters of women (75%) say it’s essential that political leaders maintain a tone of civility and respect in politics, men are 14 percentage points less likely to say this (61%).  PEW Research Center

Civility isn't essential

for those who would be presidential.

The polls are quite clear

that persons who sneer

find Capitol Hill residential.

Repartee

Come mourn with me the awful way

The world has lost its repartee.

A bright remark or rude contempt

Brings forth comments from wit exempt.

Banalities and cliches stale

Fall from dull lips like tepid hail.

And internet responses show

an intellect as thick as dough.

A vow of silence I shall take

While this world stays so damn opaque

the late summer fruit

the late summer fruit

is stubbornly hanging on

for a riper death

The Warehousing of America -- Michelle Obama's Million Dollar Book Tour -- Deepfakes Don't Blink

Amazon and its competitors are often blamed for the death of bricks-and-mortar retail, but the irony is that these online retailers generally achieve fast shipping by investing in real estate—in the form of warehouses rather than stores.   WSJ

Instead of malls and boutique store

a warehouse sprouts up right next door;

These depots of consumer lust

deliver fast (for more gold dust.)

This haste will be the major cause

of the death of Santa Claus;

for Amazon goes in high gear

while Santa comes but once a year.

*****************************************

Tickets to hear Michelle Obama and as-yet-unnamed moderators discuss her upcoming memoir “Becoming” ranged from $29.50 for perches in the nosebleeds to $3,000 for front-row seats and a package that includes a “pre-show photo opportunity,” meet-and-greet reception with Obama, a signed book and other perks, including an “exclusive VIP gift item.”   WaPo

A book tour with prices like these

is really employing the squeeze.

Michelle won't go broke

if she can so soak

such lettered diehards with her fees.

*****************************************

SALT LAKE CITY — After weeks of studying “deepfakes” — computer-generated videos that depict real people saying and doing things they never did — computer science professor Siwei Lyu noticed something eerie. Finally, he figured it out: while the characters looked and sounded like real people, they didn’t blink.  Deseret News

Trusting your own eyes no more,

finding the truth is a chore.

Ubiquitous fakes

are internet snakes

that slither right in the front door.

Remembering the Clinkers of my Youth

Until the early Sixties, parts of Minneapolis had alleys paved with clinkers.

The fused waste residue from industrial coal furnaces, clinkers are black vitreous pebbles pocked with iridescent blue holes. The city dumped fresh clinkers into our alleyway every other year then had a heavy roller crush them down and even them out.

I initially thought clinkers were tiny meteorites that a merry crew of astronauts dug up from some star-swept gravel pit to lay at my feet as a reminder of the strange grandeur of outer space. My mother was only too happy to set me straight about such an innocent fantasy:

"They're nasty leftover trash from the NSP plant" she told me kindly.

 Clinkers were hell on your pants when playing kickball, or with any other activity that required you to slide or get on your knees. With sharp obsidian-like edges, clinkers could rip open a pair of jeans at the knees in an instant -- and also leave a livid line of scrapped skin oozing blood.

My mother kept the iodine bottle handy all summer, as well as an assortment of knee patches, for when I would come keening into the house with a bloody knee.

The clinkered allway an important social haunt for boys during my young summers.

We not only played games in them, but hunkered down amidst the clinkers to speculate in privacy on the theory that all sisters were aliens in disguise getting ready to take over the world, al a The Twilight Zone. Or what the best bait was for catching carp down on the Mississippi. The consensus ran heavily in favor of a gob of Velveeta cheese mixed with canned corn.


We also went treasure hunting through the neighbor's galvanized trash cans in search of dull kitchen knives with broken handles, unstrung tennis rackets, racy paperbacks, and, best of all, empty whipped cream cans.

A discarded whipped cream can placed in a burning trash can is a pyrotechnic marvel to rival the Fourth of July. Back in those dirty unenlightened days each household burned its own trash in a metal barrel. The fires were lit by a responsible adult, who rarely stayed around until the flames went out. So when I and my cronies would latch onto a whipped cream can we quickly found an untended trash fire. We then hurled in the whipped cream can and sat back to await the fun. First a geyser of parboiled cream would come squirting out of the can. A few minutes later the can itself would explode with enough volume to rattle window panes while ashes and burning bits of trash rocketed up and then spread out over the landscape in a pyroclastic flow.

Needless to say, I and my pals would take to our heels as soon as the explosion occurred. Safely away from the mayhem, we'd stop to giggle hysterically and think of ourselves as invulnerable ruffians. Maybe that same puerile rush is part of the appeal to modern terrorists . . .

In the winter the clinkered alleyway was a dismal and forlorn place. The clinkers mixed in with the slush gave the appearance of a long ribbon of filthy gray slurry. It provided good traction for cars; much better than the cement pavement that replaced it. But that was of no concern to me as a boy. The trash fires smoldered so much during snowfalls that we couldn't enjoy tossing in our whipped cream hand grenades without the discomfort of asphyxiation.

Besides, in the winter we had the ice rink warming shed at Van Cleve Park. Redolent of damp wool socks and a kerosene heater, it was a place where boys could tie granny knots in their broken laces and talk shop about how many sticks of Bonomo Turkish Taffy a guy could actually stuff in his mouth before choking. At five cents a bar, it was a feasible experiment.
My own record was six sticks -- but I made the mistake of using banana. I think with chocolate I could have gotten up to ten, easy peasy.

No Tariffs on Chinese Knockoffs -- A Robot Wants Your Job -- Wall Street Feels Frisky

Knockoffs of famous brands — Coach, Kate Spade and others — are mostly made in China and arrive at U.S. shores through clandestine channels built to dodge authorities. The authentic purses and their components, also made in China, are shipped through official routes and will face Trump’s proposed new duties of 10 percent effective next Monday.

This all stacks up in favor of the counterfeit labels at every step of their illicit journey: from factory floors in China to street vendors in cities worldwide.  WaPo.

There was a young lass from Granada

who purchased a counterfeit Prada.

She also bit on

fake Louis Vuitton

for her cheap fashion armada.

*************************************

In South Korea, there are more than 600 installed industrial robots for every 10,000 workers in manufacturing facilities. In Japan there are more than 300 and in the United States nearly 200. Profit maximization, and the relatively high cost of human labor, helps drive automation. The average hourly cost of a manufacturing worker is $49 in Germany and $36 in the U.S. The hourly cost of a robot is $4.  Pew Research Center.

I think it an awful disgrace

a robot will soon take my place

on factory floor,

thus making me poor,

and winning the vicious rat race.

**********************************

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 climbed to hit new intraday highs Thursday as expectations for another surge in corporate profits helped investors look past the latest trade sparring between the U.S. and China.   WSJ

They say it's a very good sign

the Dow Jones is over the line.

But I hesitate

to throw a big fete;

remember 1929?

Vidhi Doshi, of the Washington Post, responded to the above with his own limerick:

has everyone forgotten the crash?

of '08 when we all lost our cash

maybe im grim

keepin it trim

maybe its time for a big splash

Life Insurance Scams -- License Plate Lunacy -- Care Providers in Cahoots to Keep Costs Sky High

Universal life was a sensation when it premiered, and for some years it worked as advertised. It included both insurance and a savings account that earns income to help pay future costs and keep the premium the same.

The result of dead interest rates is a flood of unexpectedly steep life-insurance bills that is fraying a vital safety net. Some find they owe thousands of dollars a year to keep modest policies in effect. People with million-dollar policies can owe tens of thousands annually. Some retirees are dropping policies on which they paid premiums for decades.  WSJ

My policy bought long ago

is bleeding me of all my dough.

My tragic surmise

is that swift demise

would now be doggone apropos.

For a fringe of American drivers, having a fine car isn’t enough. They must have low license-plate numbers, too, and they’re fueling competition for the tags that can be relentless. In Delaware, a decades long obsession over tags with few digits has given rise to a vibrant private market.  WSJ

When license plates cost more than cars,

there ought to be folks behind bars.

Such fripperies show

that people who blow

their wads on such things must see stars.

Dominant hospital systems use an array of secret contract terms to protect their turf and block efforts to curb health-care costs. As part of these deals, hospitals can demand insurers include them in every plan and discourage use of less-expensive rivals. Other terms allow hospitals to mask prices from consumers, limit audits of claims, add extra fees and block efforts to exclude health-care providers based on quality or cost.   WSJ 

I went to the hospital sick,

and wanted a cheap stay to pick.

But doctors and clerks

just acted like jerks --

my wallet came out anemic.

Nearly half of all cellphone calls next year will come from scammers, according to First Orion, a company that provides phone carriers and their customers caller ID and call blocking technology.  WaPo

The IRS is closing in,

and Immigration wants my kin.

My student loans are way behind;

my car insurance is declined.

It seems to trouble I am prone,

according to my damn cell phone.

But all is well and fancy free

if I just pay a little fee

with money order or gift card,

to avoid some jail time hard.

So scammers, come and get your cash --

and hear my blunderbuss go 'crash!'