Halloween costumes that I wanted to see.....but didn't

J.J. Gittes (Chinatown)

Child Catcher (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)

Willy Wonka

Capt. von Rauffenstein (Grand Illusion)

Dr. Strangelove

The Invisible Man

Carl Spackler (Caddy Shack)

The Cow (Top Secret!)

Endorsements and Predictions--or--Brouhaha 2006

by Escutcheon Blot

Reading from afar, as I am wont to do on a daily basis, I have formulated a useful list of endorsements in the various gubernatorial, senatorial, and house-of-representativatorial races next Tuesday, November 7th. Bear in mind I have not seen one commercial, and only know what I can read online(I have no patience for videos). This is by no means an exhaustive, or even informed, list. I expect it, however, to be obeyed.

My first endorsement is for the opponents of all former professional football players:

Lynn Swann (R)-a lightweight bit of obvious tokenism. Ed Rendell is no treat, but Swann is running because he's famous, and the Republican party gave him a pass in the primaries because he was black, and the Steelers had just won the Super Bowl.

Heath Shuler (D)-one of the worst ever quarterbacks this lifelong 'Skins fan had to endure(and we've had lots to endure lately--to hell with firing the coach--let's fire that damn Boy Wonder of an owner!).

and for the noble amateur:

George Allen (R) and James Webb (R-D-whatever)-both (if I recall correctly) race-baiting college players. One is a dumb jerk, the other is a mean jerk. There is an independent in the race who could, by endorsing one of them, ensure the election of the other (her idea: massive new spending on light rail in one of the stingiest states in the union).

Lightweight sons of famous (and often better) fathers. NB: there are no Bushes or Kennedys on this list.

Tom Kean, Jr (R)-nice guy, bit dim, jumped with unseemly haste on the NJSC gay marriage decision. I am sick of the use of gays as punching bags by both parties.

Bob Casey, Jr (D)-a pro-life son of a famously pro-life father who has assured his fellow Pennsylvania Democrats that although he's pro-life, he doesn't really mean it. Professional politician who seems to run for office for lack of anything better to do. Unqualified.

Lincoln Chaffee (R)-unlikeable little nitwit. (Oh yeah, and Carter's son out in Nevada, can't remember his name.)

Self-Righteous Church Boys

Harold Ford (D)-does commercials in front of church pews, apologizes for liking Jesus. Rants against gays like a Trent Lott(vote against him too). Oh yes...thinks that a nuclear Australia is grave risk to national security.

Rick Santorum (R)-certainly better prepared than his opponent, but a little too Falwellesque with his direct line to God. Does get on Hillary's nerves, though(vote against her too).

Ted Strickland (D) and Ken Blackwell (R)-more of same from above.

Race-baiters-by-proxy

Bob Corker (R)-should have spoken up loudly and clearly against stupid(if not actually racist)Playboy Bunny ad. To be fair, any ad on that topic would have been construed by some Vanderbilt academic as racist.

Ben Cardin (D)-has let his colleagues, his own campaign employees and his party use outrageous racial innuendo against the only really promising senate candidate in the country. Also clueless career politician; twenty years in Washington is sufficient.

William McKinley complexes.

John Hostettler (R)-who seems to think that it is 1896 and he can run a porch front campaign. I am not a fan of the unseemly lust of the professional politician after his sinecure, but the Hon. Mr. Hostettler shows a little too much noblesse oblige in his re-election attempt. Also another gay-baiting church boy.

Special cases.

Ned Lamont (D)-one Paris Hilton in the Senate is enough. Jay Rockefeller doesn't need the competition.

Robert Menendez (D)-Corrupt Jersey Political Machine Boss.

Ted Kennedy (D)-aside from Chappaquidick, he's now a known Cold-War-Quisling. Andropov in televised debates with Ronald Reagan? Please...dumb too. And an environmentally-threatening largeness of face.

Robert Byrd (D-KKK)-how long does the Senate need a conscience, anyway? Isn't that sort of thing an anachronism?

Nancy Pelosi (D)-wants to put the gavel of the House "in the hands of America's children". No thank you Helen Lovejoy.

Tan Nguyen (R)-a naturalized immigrant himself, countenanced an outrageous attempt to disenfranchise legitimate voters, other foreign-born citizens like himself.

Loretta Sanchez (D)-above's opponent. Won first House race against B-1 Bob Dornan on the strength of illegal immigrant voting(an unproven allegation I am repeating anyway). One is just as bad as the other.

That is the list of my negative endorsements. The list of positive ones is lamentably, far shorter. I am not sure whether this reflects the paucity of honorable characters in politics, or my own misanthropy.

Michael Steele (R-A in scarlet)-(see above) could be a truly great Senator. Also--despite obvious tokenism in the Pennsylvania race--it is not healthy for a multi-racial nation to have one race a seemingly wholly-owned subsidiary of one political party.

Joseph Lieberman (I-D, we'll see)-another obnoxious church(temple)-boy, but seems to realize that the War on Terror is truly about our continued existence. His trust-fund opponent appears not to think it likely.

Conrad Burns (R-cattle caller)-precisely because he is an unlikeable jerk. The Senate needs one. Just one, though. Vote against any of the others I have forgotten.

Nancy Johnson (R)-the only race which actually means anything to me personally. I have met and spoken at length with the Connecticut congresswoman, and found her not only sympathetic, but an enthusiastic booster of the arts, not only officially, but personally(and intelligently--unlike so many dimwit political poseurs--nicely skewered by Camille Paglia recently and regularly).

And finally, for the sake of Euphony, and in consideration of the Reverend Jackson's declining years:

Chris Choccola (R) and Kathleen Harris (R)- for where would Jesse be without being able to rant about 'Draccola and Choccola'?


By my count that leaves the Senate (assuming all other races follow poll predictions) at:

Republicans: 55
Democrats: 39
Independent/Socialist/Will vote with Dems: 2
Vacant: 4

On second thought, vote against a few more Republicans. They shouldn't keep a 55 seat majority after the supercilious demagoguery and lard-lined appropriations of the last few years. I'd like to see the vacant seats hold the balance of power.

Perhaps they could be filled by a new reality show on Fox, American Super-Senator. Just as long as Clay Aiken doesn't get in.

But seriously, remember that not voting is also a vote...against the entire system. This is a point that people forget when politicians are constantly urging them to participate, as they (the pols) have no legitimacy otherwise. An election where only a minority of voters participate isn't truly valid in a democracy. Fortunately, we have a republic. Ha.

Yours in disgruntlement and disaffection,

Escutcheon Blot


P.S. my actual predictions:

Senate: R-52, D-46, I/D-1, S-1 (I think either MD, MT, or NJ will surprise)

House: No idea who will have the nominal majority, but it will be too small to be workable. Hastert will not be speaker.

Governors : Clear Democrat majority--first time since 1994.

Of course there will be some unsurprising November surprise which will then make all of these predictions invalid.

You will visit the Vampire Blog-a-Than at the Film Experience Blog

... it has a lot of stuff, including Edward Copeland's Fright Night post.

Activity planned for Liverputty this week

In case you don't check The House Next Door - you should. It's got lots of great stuff and is usually hopping throughout the week. Today, I posted a profile of Kharis over there which falls in line with my Peter Cushing posts from last year. Be sure to pay it a visit and drop your two cents on what Kharis means to you or relate the first time that you crapped your pants at the site of the mummy.

As for this site: we've got a few posts lined up for this week. First, Escutcheon Blot boldly looks into the tea leaves of his own bias to predict the outcome of the 2006 elections. Then Wagstaff will talk about Halloween costumes. And, if that's not enough, Charles Parsley discusses Steve Reeves and the Italian Sword and Sandal flicks from the 50s and 60s.

So there are lots of reasons to check in this week.

The Enchantment of the Seas

She was nine hundred plus feet and had a water displacement too large to comprehend. I'm not sure how many tons she was (the stat sheet isn't in front of me) but I imagine most of it was in the form of various foods and tropical drinks and, perhaps, porters, waiters and servants. Once a week she makes the rounds: depart from Ft. Lauderdale on Monday and arrive to Key West on Tuesday. From there to Cozumel on Wednesday. Open sea day was Thursday. On Friday she sits off Cococay in the Bahamas, (which is under the dominion of Royal Caribbean). Pulling out of Cococay, the Enchantment goes in circles before returning back to Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday.

Royal Caribbean has hired a small army of retired Henny Youngmans to greet guests at the airport, joke with them and get them on the shuttles to the ship. To board the ship, you go through some security, get an ID/Charge Card which is used to pay for everything that isn't free onboard and to exit from or return to the ship. From there, you are free to roam the floating extravaganza at will. Though the Windjammer buffet should not be ignored. As everyone says about cruises, they are floating buffets. I ate my weight in smoked salmon.

After looking over the activities at all the ports, Toe was exited about the dolphin interaction swim where she would be introduced to her new wet friend for an entire afternoon. That was in Cozumel. By the time we got there, we opted for the horseback riding instead.

Key West was mostly spent shopping around and walking around the historic sites. The ship didn't stay long there.

In Cozumel, as mentioned above, Toe and I met our new equine friends for a tour of some Mayan ruins in the jungle. After a hot ride and cold drink, we ran the gauntlet of pushy Mexican merchants. We bought a few souvenirs, we returned to the ship.

Onboard the Enchantment we went to a wine tasting, took some dance and piano lessons, saw some shows, drank various brightly colored beverages, etc. etc. We were paired with two couples (both newlyweds) for supper. By coincidence, both guys were nurses and both ladies were dental hygienists and all four were from the same area of Florida. All of which led to some medically graphic dinner conversations.

At Cococay we pretty much messed around the beach. There was a bit of shopping there and a buffet out on the beach which wasn't particularly appetizing - but it was a lovely island. They were all lovely islands. And the boat was an adult oriented magic kingdom.

Wagstaff's lumber room #2

From Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim, Marlow speaking:

There are times when a man must act as though life were equally sweet in any company. I've known such a time, and, what's more, I shan't now pretend to pull a long face over my necessity, because a good many of that bad company from want of moral -- moral -- what shall I say? -- posture, or from some other equally profound cause, were twice as instructive and twenty times more amusing than the usual respectable thief of commerce you fellows ask to sit at your table without any real necessity -- from habit, from cowardice, from good-nature, from a hundred sneaking and inadequate reasons.

The Rope to Hang Them

by Escutcheon Blot


The recent furor over the intemperate, to say the least, speech of sulfuric-smelling Hugo Chavez at the UN and his fellow demagogue, Ahmadenijad's invitation to speak at the Counsel on Foreign Relations has dovetailed nicely (for me, if no one else in the free world) with the election on Sunday of the new Parliament in Angela Merkel's home state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in which the NPD (National Partei Deutschlands--the neo-nazis) grabbed over 7 percent of the vote, and entered the state parliament...bringing the total of state parliaments here with neo-nazi representation to three. The other two states are both in the old East Germany; Brandenburg and Saxony. The neo-nazis also won a few council seats in Berlin.

At the so-called spitzenrunde, after the results were in, all the leaders of the successful parties (those who got more than 5% of the vote and got into parliament) were invited to a round-table discussion/interview/gloat-fest. The commentators, as is standard practice in Germany, were polite and respectful to the other four parties (the socialists, conservatives, free democrats, and the leftists--former communists--an almost purely Eastern German party). They were uniformly rude and confrontational with the little nazi, never letting him finish a sentence. This is also standard practice.

The NPD party leader, Udo Pastoers, never lost his temper under this treatment, although almost anyone else would have. He's a clever politician, and the intemperate and ill-advisedly shabby treatment of him by the press only served to make him seem to be the reasonable one. His manner also looks almost exactly like a young Hitler (no mustache) down to the hands behind the back, the smug, downward-looking half smile, and the shambling presence when surrounded by his followers, exuding pseudo-humility...an obviously and ominously studied imitation (the media publishes very few pictures of the nazis...this was the most representative I could find). But through the silly overreaction of the media, he looked good...for a nazi anyway.

Hugo Chavez's hallucinogenic tirade on the floor of the UN's General Assembly, and Ahmadenijad's wriggling conference at the CFR (2000 World Zionists?!--who has been counting in the secret meetings at Skull and Bones?) were both condemned by the only US TV news to which I have any access...CNN. I read much condemnation elsewhere on the web. They both had not only what they said (with justice--that was lunacy), but also their right to speak, attacked vociferously from both sides of the partisan aisle, including a ludicrously over-the-top reaction by Congressman Charley Rangel (D-NY).

What everyone seems to be missing in this rush to silence bad men is that fanatics rarely make sense in the long run. The best way to defeat a demagogue, to my way of thinking, is through ridicule. The most effective source of the ridiculous comes from the mouths of the demagogues themselves. Letting these nutcases fully speak their piece cannot but help their enemies (us--the free world--whatever). Neither Chavez or Ahmadenijad came off very well with their chief interlocutors--the MSM. The reaction reminded me of Kim Jong Il's "I'm so ronrey" scena in Team America. A few more speeches like those are exactly what is needed.

Incidentally, the fact that Hugo Chavez received the longest applause of the session, at four minutes, does not necessarily mean that it was the best applause. I've had a lot of experience with audiences and fans...and fanatical fans. Ten or fifteen dedicated clappers can make a lot of noise...and there where far more than that in the diplomatic delegations of Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Myanmar, Sudan, and other obnoxious entities. And if the applause was the warmest for Chavez, then that very clearly illustrates the value of the UN itself.

Give 'em all enough rope to hang themselves with.

Yours, in an increasingly cool, dark, and autumnal northern Europe,

Escutcheon Blot

Wagstaff's lumber room #1

Samuel Johnson on Reading, from James Boswell's Life of Johnson:

He [Johnson] said, that for general improvement, a man should read whatever his immediate inclination prompts him to; though, to be sure, if a man has a science to learn, he must regularly and resolutely advance. He added, "what we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention; so there is but one half to be employed on what we read." He told us, he read Fielding's Amelia through without stopping. He said, "if a man begins to read in the middle of a book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not quit it, to go to the beginning. He may, perhaps, not feel again the inclination."

Two worthwhile reads

The latest Lee Harris piece on the substance of the Pope's recent speech and Joseph Epstein's bittersweet essay on Friendship Among the Intellectuals.

Farewell Koizumi

Since 2001, Junichiro Koizumi has been a strong prime minister for Japan, when the Japanese direly needed a strong leader. He's also been a steadfast American ally. He started Japan on the long road of economic reforms and the even longer road of modernizing Japan's national security stance to reflect current realities. Hopefully his replacement, Shintaro Abe, will be able to continue the work that Koizumi has started. Regardless, Koizumi's presence will be missed.

Some pieces are coming together….

When the NYTimes ran an article about one of Bob Dylan’s sources of material for Modern Times, it immediately reminded me of Confessions of a Yakuza by Junichi Saga. In much the same way as Confederate poet Henry Timrod worked his words into Dylan’s lyrics, so too did Junichi Saga find several Yakuza lines in Love and Theft. Both stories had a refreshing episode: upon hearing about the borrowing of Timrod’s phrases biographer Walter Cisco was delighted at the nod and the recognition it would earn the poet. Likewise, when Junichi Saga heard about Dylan’s use of his material, he was flattered. Meanwhile, Dylan pretty much never flinched or felt a need to explain. Why would he? After all, as he described himself in Scorsese’s documentary No Direction Home, he’s a 'musical expeditionary.' Perhaps the best phrase to describe him. As such, he’s free from any rules the bind the rest of us. Not that his last transgressions were offenses. But it wouldn’t matter if it was, because it is Dylan.

However, the connections between Timrod and Modern Times don’t stop with lines from poems. I’m not sure who actually suggested the idea, but there apparently floats a notion that the title of Modern Times is a rearranging of the letters that spell Henry Timrod. Now before you spit your drink out in a fine mist of surprise at the absurdity of it all….before you notice that the title and the name are hardly a match in letters – consider that the six letters (three in each) that do not have counterparts spell the telling word shymer eshmyr rhymes. That’s right! Just what was Dylan thinking? What clues does this offer to those trying to break the Dylaninci Code?

Perhaps two poems from Timrod will offer more clues into the bottomless mystery of Bob Dylan, and, if not, perhaps they will provide a glimpse from the poet himself:


At Magnolia Cemetery (Charlston, 1967)
SLEEP sweetly in your humble graves,
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause;
Though yet no marble column craves
The pilgrim here to pause.

In seeds of laurel in the earth
The blossom of your fame is blown,
And somewhere, waiting for its birth,
The shaft is in the stone!

Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years
Which keep in trust your storied tombs,
Behold! your sisters bring their tears,
And these memorial blooms.

Small tributes! but your shades will smile
More proudly on these wreaths to-day,
Than when some cannon-moulded pile
Shall overlook this bay.

Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!
There is no holier spot of ground
Than where defeated valor lies,
By mourning beauty crowned.



Poet! If on a Lasting Fame Be Bent
Poet! if on a lasting fame be bent
Thy unperturbing hopes, thou will not roam
Too far from thine own happy heart and home;
Cling to the lowly earth, and be content!
So shall thy name be dear to many a heart;
So shall the noblest truths by thee be taught;
The flower and fruit of wholesome human thought
Bless the sweet labors of thy gentle art.
The brightest stars are nearest to the earth,
And we may track the mighty sun above,
Even by the shadow of a slender flower.
Always, O bard, humility is power!
And thou mayst draw from matters of the hearth
Truths wide as nations, and as deep as love.

Finknottle’s yarn continues

I almost forgot that Liverputty has an advice columnist, or that he, in turn, has an assistant. The odors from Finknottle’s work space have all but subsided, so what is there to remind me? His presence? Recent posts? About the only notice that we receive which proves that Finknottle was once around the office is the occasional subpoena that somebody is trying to serve him. His assistant has continued the ridiculous story.

A Few Modest Proposals -or- Muscle Lads of the Near East

by Escutcheon Blot

Having recently been bee-bopping around the globe(or at least to four different countries), I have had an opportunity to view customs and immigration from several different angles. The Czechs were friendly and laid-back. Of course, we were leaving. They may well have simply been happy to see us go. The Germans seem always to be fairly low-intensity, and all of them(although I don't need this service anymore) appear to be able to speak fluent English. The Poles are somewhat intimidating, and speak only limited English and German(this was the German-Polish border). The Poles did however, as far as I could tell, all speak their own language .

This is, sadly, not always the case at the Port Authority Customs and Immigration Brouhaha (PACIB) at JFK. There are, to start with, several people-pushers who, as I have noticed on several separate occasions, cannot speak English. Oh they try, but it comes out as a garbled pidgin, with heaping doses of whatever language it is they do in fact speak. I had to inform one diminutive blonde lady(who appeared to be of Nordic extraction--lest any of you think this is racially motivated) what the English for fifteen and sixteen where...Respectively, of course.

Then the immigration officers themselves are, almost to a person, rude, arrogant, overbearing, and arrantly unprofessional. I have heard from European friends of several different countries, all of them allies in our much-hyped (and make no mistake--existentially important) War on Terror, that they are even worse--to the point of being abusive--over on the non-citizens' side of the entry hall. I would like to request that Homeland Security make sure all employees at points of entry at least speak English. I have no expectation of any other language being learned. Indeed, there is no other language which approaches the universality of English. And politeness is probably a lost art anyway, although these customs officers should at least familiarize themselves with the names of our allies, and treat their citizens accordingly. I confidently expect this request to be profoundly ignored.

Secondly, I have noted over the summer, having changed to a gym with a large proportion of its clientele of Turkish--and presumably Muslim--persuasion, that the muscle-lads of the Near East, when showering down after a work-out, or relaxing their muscles in the sauna or steam bath, are usually clothed in underwear or a bathing suit(both of which are forbidden articles in German saunas and steam baths--I don't quite know why).

At first I put this down to a charming(ish) flashback to 7th grade gym class, until I was reminded of something I think I once knew anyway: namely, no Muslim man, from a fundamentalist viewpoint, may show anyone his business. Nor, of course, may a Muslim woman...Although I think most everyone had already guessed that.

In one blindingly brilliant(and somewhat prurient) stroke, I saw the answer both to airborne terrorism and in-flight boredom. Simply forbid clothing on board all flights, domestic and international. While this may cause some visual discomfort at first (a disappointingly small portion of our population resembles members of the Swedish Ski Team), it would certainly put the kibosh on Islamist Terrorism in the Air. And perhaps the perpetual public exposure would get some more people onto sensible dietary paths--not to preach. And the damned planes would have to be kept a little warmer over the North Atlantic.

Yours, tanned, rested, and ready...if a bit irked,

Escutcheon Blot

Mildred Pierce Walks Among Us

by Charlie Parsley

Joan Crawford stomps over the bridge with brazen self-determination. Her linebacker silhouette cuts through the thick, swirling fog. Vapors rise from the briny depths around her hardened conical head. Her outstretched claws grasp at the air. Her big glassy eyes stare up into the lights. Her big mouth gasps for breath as she staggers through the mists of the marine layer.

Something is amiss in the manner she carries her glittering rhinestone brooch. It is not the agent of her charm and radiance as it should be. There is something else going on here, something weird. Her lipstick masks but does not conceal her agony and torment. Mildred clutches the wet handrail with her cold, clammy fishpaws and looks skyward. With high heels, she clambers up onto the metal bars and she is about to jump until a policeman sees her and stops her. She was about to get in the water.

Meanwhile there are guys on a boat with sonar equipment who are already looking for her. The policeman has diverted Mildred away from the bridge. The farther away she is from the ocean, the more distressed and pitiul her croaking becomes. She ambles up the alley. A man drinking in a bar taps on a windowpane as she nears. Mildred's sonar hearing picks it up and she moves in.

Mildred beguiles him with her drunken ways. In a telling move which reveals her inner predilections, Mildred throws a drink in the face of one of the men. Soon they arrive near bedrooms. Then another man shows up. Two men fight over Mildred. Shots ring out. The men run out onto the deck of the boat. They discover that it is a woman firing the gun.

The men stir among themselves and take the gun from her. They are shocked at the realization: the gun is in a man's ownership, but a woman's possession. It is a man's tool in a woman's hands. They reassert their authority with the brazen hussy and then quarrel amongst themselves over her nice figure. Is the woman the cause or the effect of the conflict among the men? Are the men the cause or the effect of Mildred's manipulating ways? Did Mildred fire the gun? Or is some other Creature involved?

Mildred runs away. Where has she been? She isn't where she was supposed to be. What is she scared of? Is she hiding something? There are no good answers, but plenty of spurious clues. Consider Exhibit A: Profile of Creature is strikingly similar to that of Mildred.

Exhibit B: There are bills to be paid.

Esquire Haberdashery. One dozen monogrammed shirts: 215.25. Yet, this is a men's clothing store, "Outfitters for the Sterner Sex" reads the statement. Why has she bought a dozen shirts for a man? What does she get out of it? You can see she has also been shopping in Pasadena. The madness does not stop there. She racked up a bill at a horse saddlery. Riding Saddle and Stirrups $700.00. Mildred is clearly an egotistical monster. Her obsessive manipulation affects every aspect of her existence, right down to the last penny in her personal checking account in Burbank.

Scuba gear is required to enable a descent into the Freudian subconscious. Two men enter the water with the one woman. They descend deep into another world and momentarily lose sight of each other. They are alone in their self-realization. Each of them, lost in this new world, become a creature as they swim through dark, unexplored territory in swimming pools. They breathe through mechanical gills, transforming themselves themselves into woman-obsessed gill-man sea-creatures.

And so the Creature appears. The two men struggle with internal conflicts, thrashing amid the churning release of their egos and breathing apparatus. Leaving the waters of the unconscious and returning to the boat of reality, they discover that the woman is not there. She is still in the water, unconcious, with the Creature.

The men return to the subconcious and find her floating helplessly. Through various acrobatic ballet moves, the woman had transformed into a sea-creature. This transformation removed clothing and swimming apparatus from the woman revealing an inner Sea Goddess archetype. Hers is a classic metamorphosis: a young curvaceous human undergoing a violent lupine-like physical transformation resulting in lost clothing and excessive fatigue upon returning from the transformed state.

In a display of submission and weakness, the woman arches her back, heaving her breasts forward towards a nearly nude trunks-clad man pumping his legs furiously beneath her, pushing her up to the surface, wrapping his restricting arms around her. He takes a plug out of his mouth and puts it into hers. He moves this breathing scuba apparatus tube from his mouth to hers and back again, sharing a kiss of breath and becoming one 'mating' creature as they drift with love bubbles from the unconscious.

Mildred rushes about to do what she can to make everyone happy, yet her results cause confusion, disruption, anger, frustration, high mortgage costs, arguments and business loans. No one is happy. Mildred is the center of attention. Mildred is the cause of concern, the source of the conflict among the men, among the family, among the public eager to have a look at her. Is she aware of this power, or is it unconscious? By what means does she demand this self-confirming obsession? Her transformation from sea to land, or, from marriage to divorce is taxing to her transformed visceral systems. She is in a new world different from us. If only we could capture her and examine her. Warrants go out and she is brought in. The question "What happened?" is asked. She is examined. The men discover a transformative Creature with means for taking in oxygen with a dual set of organs both lungs and gills. That evening, the men on board once again fight over the sea-woman. Their struggle is eternal.

Man has struggled for centuries to understand the mystery of the woman animal. Her primal powers bewitch him, and his entire life is lived in an eternal, unyielding conquest to discover and understand her through sexual mating. Yet this conquest of the sexual monster of the subconscious is ultimately doomed to fail. The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Dylan hotter than Jessica Simpson?

He sure as hell is! He's got his first #1 album since Desire, which, incidentally, was also a masterpiece as well as his biggest selling album. He beat out Jessica Simpson and that other singer with the blonde hair for sales last week. Kudos, Dylan!

Thanks to Ed Copeland for sharing the news with me.

Bob Dylan's Modern Times

I have a post of the album up at Edward Copeland on Film.