Something Not Terrible
I think we could all do with something not terrible, couldn’t we?
The pair of Red-Bellied Woodpeckers living nearby have continued to visit my feeder, sometimes interrupted by a surprisingly patient Blue Jay. The blue bully is outmatched by the jackhammer face of the larger woodpeckers, and hasn’t tried mimicking a hawk’s cry to frighten them off. That surprised me, because one of the jays around here has done it. Maybe the visit from the Cooper’s Hawk put an end to that. We’ve got a little fierce Downy Woodpecker too.
Speaking of Red & Blue, I just finished reading a great anthology of Superman stories by artists and authors who don’t usually write superhero comics, such as Darcie Little Badger, called Red and Blue. The only colors in the book besides white pages and black ink strokes are red and blue, which gives it a striking look.
For Halloween, I watched an old favorite: An American Werewolf in London. The movie holds up rather well, and I don’t just mean the groundbreaking practical effects for the transformation. Griffin Dunne and David Naughton play two bros on a backpacking trip across the British Isle, and while their conversation does focus on women they are pursuing, they were refreshingly not sleazy about it. It’s one of the most wholesome horror films I’ve seen, probably because it takes The Wolf Man (1941) as its influence, and that movie is most memorable for the tragedy of seeing Lon Chaney Jr. play Larry Talbot, a nice fellow who succumbs to the werewolf curse. It’s been a while since I’ve watched that one, so I’ll revisit it tonight.
And while we’re here, let’s talk about the phenomenon of Dogmen. These are the Midwest’s answer to Bigfoot, a supernatural beast seen late at night on the highways, praries, and forests, who disappear so quickly that the only explanation the believers can resort to is some sort of extradimensional travel. Now, as much as I’d like there to be wolfmen howling in the night, I think the proper application of Occam’s Razor here—not to split hairs—would behoove us to theorize that these sightings can be blamed on the frailty of human dark vision, pattern recognition, and eyewitness testimony. I guess that means that I’m willing to believe in sasquatch and wolfmen, but not teleporting sasquatch and wolfmen. We all need to know what our boundaries are, and that’s mine.
Sadly, when we visited Joshua Tree, we didn’t see the Northern Lights, the comet, or even Yucca Man, the desert’s smelly answer to Skunk Ape, known to terrorize young Marines on guard duty at Twentynine Palms. Nary even a tortoise or a roadrunner! But we saw cholla cactus and ravens and a lot of beautiful landscapes, so that was enough. If I’m sharing photos chronologically, I should post about our visit to La Jolla beach first, but I think I’ll jump ahead to Joshua Tree for Sunday. I loved the desert, and I will return to it when I can spend more time exploring the mysteries of the Mojave.
Last night, I phone banked for Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania. I am not fond of conversing with strangers, but I felt compelled to do this after visiting Pennypacker park last weekend, and seeing the suburb of Torresdale plastered with political signs for the demented dictator who wants another try at fomenting a second civil war. I just wanted some eggs and home fries at a diner car, but their lawn was covered in signs telling me to spend my money elsewhere. I found Tate’s Good Food, a small luncheonette where I sat next to a retiree and a construction worker at the counter who didn’t talk politics. I had a kielbasa and cheese omelet and some home fries, and I decided to join the Italian-American Democrats and call undecided voters in the swing states. Most people don’t answer their phone from strange numbers, anyway. But I had to tell myself that I was doing everything I could. The cowardice of billionaires in the face of this blatant fascist is too much to handle. The people who will suffer the least always seem to be the ones ready to bend the knee first to dictators. I’ll let Laura Erickson and Charlotte Clymer say it better than I can.
Until next time, don’t despair.
Generally, I'm with you on how well "An American Werewolf In London" has held up*. But there's one aspect that is seriously dated:
In the blue movie showing at the porno theatre near the end, the on-screen talent is shown relaxing 'hors de combat'. On the bedside table: a can of Tab™️😂
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*Alas, Greenwich Village's AAWIL-inspired Slaughtered Lamb Pub recently shuttered.
This was indeed not terrible! (At a time when most things are.) Great shot of that woodpecker. Thank you Thomas