Stagecoach Class & Ninjas

If asked to compare traveling in a 17th or 18th-century stagecoach with flying in modern airplanes, the advantage would surely lean heavily in favor of the former. True, it might be a bit bumpier, and you might be courteously asked to “stand and deliver” by a gentleman of the road, but this had a slightly romantic frisson. The only person in real peril was the highwayman himself. True, it might cost you a wallet or some pricey bauble, but you could boast for the rest of your life about your encounter with the legendary Claude Du Vall or James MacLaine. Sadly, these gentlemen were able to do very little boasting after developing extremely sore throats at Tyburn Tree.

As for the other passengers, if they proved uncongenial or even malodorous, you could either have the coachman eject them or take a brief sojourn at a tavern and wait for the next stagecoach.

With modern air travel, there is no room for escape, and conditions are even more cramped than in the London-to-Exeter coach. Take my present highly uncomfortable position. After enduring all the indignities of modern travel—the security check, the full-body scans, and so on—I am squeezed into a seat aboard a plane heading to Washington. It is the early hours, and all the other passengers are asleep, except for myself and a rather odd, hooded individual who is staring at me balefully through dark sunglasses. I blame myself for this ... slightly.

The Manga/Ninja warrior appeared just before the plane's doors closed and took the empty seat across the aisle from me. With a histrionic swirl of robes that might have put one in mind of Dick Turpin, were it not for the fact that the robes were covered in Chinese ideograms. Something distinctly comical about him made the whole effect less than sinister. I suspect it was his obvious yearning for dramatic effect—the sheer silliness of the look, especially the dramatically swirling robes. I am on the plump side myself, and this I know: we don't do “sinister” particularly well, and we definitely should never consider posing as Ninjas. Well, the most excellent Sydney Greenstreet did exude dark malevolence brilliantly, but no director in his right mind would have cast him as, say, a kung fu hero.

I have been meandering a bit, as I feel guilty and not a little tired, having been up for the best part of 24 hours. You’ll be wondering what I did to incur the wrath of my new acquaintance. I am ashamed to say it, but I might have grinned—just possibly—although I immediately afterward adopted a neutral expression, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to meet a ninja on the “red-eye” flight to Washington. I then began frantically scribbling these notes to pass the long hours (I can never sleep on planes) and to distract myself from the glare.

“Mocking the afflicted,” the more moralistic of you might gasp. I’d counter that the chap was merely an extreme example of what most of us do, and he might even be seen as satirizing us. All but the least self-conscious among us prepare faces to meet the faces that we meet. We want to impress and, for example, casually place hugely intellectual tomes on our coffee tables or pretend that the cordon bleu dish we’ve spent all day working on was thrown together in minutes.

[Later] You may be pleased to hear that I made amends for my faux pas. As we disembarked, without a hint of a smirk, I told the ninja warrior that he looked absolutely amazing and that I had never seen anything quite like it. He seemed pleased.

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I am afraid this was dashed off rather quickly, but I am utterly jet lagged.

March for Quokkas Now!

Here’s wishing you the happiest World Quokka Day ever.  I hope you and your loved ones enjoy a load of quokka-related activities, but don’t overdo it with all those delicious but deceptively strong quokka cocktails!  

Before you check your calendars, I can assure you that partly due to an unfounded prejudice against the delightful grinning marsupials, printers almost always omit this festive occasion.  There is a World Jellyfish Day (November 3), but as a result of what can only be construed as shameful speciesism, the quokka has been neglected.  Can you imagine that not a single Ivy League has courses devoted to quokka studies and there are LITERALLY no literature departments teaching the works of Shakespeare or Dante through a quokkaist marxist lens!  What on earth are universities for?

The erasure of the quokka from history is a matter of shame, most evident in the visual arts. There is, of course, the 25,000-year-old legendary "Quokka of Willendorf," known only from drawings in Josef Szombathy's archaeological notebooks. Then there is the famous Cerne Abbas Quokka, dating from the late iron age and the putative quokka in the Book of Kells (c. AD 800).  However, one scours the works of the trecento and quattrocento in vain for images of the creature. It is only when one comes to Raphael’s celebrated Lady with Quokka that there is a belated depiction of one. The Byzantine icon featuring the noble beast, "discovered" in early 17th-century Lithuania, is commonly regarded as an  amateurish forgery.

I personally see this as institutional or - just possibly - insidious structural quokkaism and we should fight to remedy this outrageous injustice. The fact that I only invented the thing a few minutes ago is absolutely no excuse.

Note:
Educate yourself! A must-read is surely Grins Turned to Anguish: A Longitudinal Marxist-Leninist/Deconstructionist Analysis of the Dis(Mis)placement of the Quokka in Western Narratives available from all good bookstores.

A Club for Chatty Insomniacs

For those of us with recherché interests, insomnia, and an irresistible urge to impart knowledge in the wee small hours, life can be difficult. Of course, it is even more difficult for those unfortunate enough to be around us—our neighbours, our families, taxi drivers, and the local clergy.

Take, for instance, that time when it seemed a good idea to dip into The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius in an attempt to ward off sleeplessness.   This turned out to be a mistake.  Although more of an agnostic than lapsed Catholic, the saint’s vivid description of the flames of hell got me into a bit of a state.  I decided that a call to the local priest would be in order as surely it was his job to deal with spiritual crises whatever the hour.  In this I was mistaken; a tired, Hibernian voice gave me advice straight out of Genesis: I should go forth and multiply forthwith.   

This very morning. I was mulling over the word “up” as used in expressions like “eat it up” or “she beat him up.” Clearly, the word functions as an intensifier, emphasising the completeness of an action, but how recently did it start performing this role? It feels modern, but then it dawned on me: it is Middle English! Just think of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: “And Gawayn gef hit up, with a goud wille.”

I decided that my wife needed to know this at once, so I poked her in the ribs. Her response was perfectly apt and somewhat sacerdotal: “Shut the **** up!”

Undeterred, I headed to my study. I must tell the good folk of Half Moon Bay! They are bound to be awake! Perhaps those of us similarly afflicted could set up a club. Unfortunately, the server seemed to be down.

Philosophical Reflections on Dogs

Some of you have questioned the reality of Jasper Montgomery and have even suggested  he might be a cartoon.  

Concerning Jasper’s reality or ontological status, I often question this myself.  Certainly, there appears to be a hairy creature basking in the sun and nibbling plums at my feet.  While he does usually answer to that name, can I say with any degree of certainty that he is really Jasper?  Can I be quite sure?

When we got him as a small puppy, we thought that was probably his name - he had a Jasperish look - and have called him that ever since … but we might be entirely wrong. He has never expressed any objection in our hearing although that might be due to natural diffidence. Whatever the creature might be, it is extraordinarily well-mannered.

I guess this uncertainty goes for humans as well.  Many decades ago, my late parents decided I was ‘Mark’ and called me that throughout their lives with, perhaps, unwarranted confidence. As a teen, I did suspect that I might actually be Caratacus or even Wolfgang, but all my family insisted this was a profound mistake and that if I persisted in the matter I should be disinherited forthwith.

Is Jasper Montgomery a ‘cartoon’?  Well, to the extent that we  anthropomorphize the unfortunate creature,  ascribing feelings, thoughts  and profound sensibilities to him, then I guess he is.  But then, we do that to people too so perhaps everyone aside from myself is a cartoon?  This is probably better than being described as a philosophical zombie.

I would write more but I must take the creature formally known as Jasper for a walk.

Cordon Bleu - British Style

It is a lamentable affectation, but Eastern Europeans seem to look to France for matters cultural than to far, far more civilised England.  Think, for example, of Tolstoy’s aristocrats in War and Peace.  Prince Vassily doesn’t say “that absolute stinker, Napoleon, has bloody gone and nicked Genoa and Lucca” or something to that effect in Russian.  No, he twirls his doubtless heavily pomaded and perfumed moustache and announces “Eh bien, mon prince, Gênes et Lucques ne sont plus que des apanages, des pomestias, de la famille Buonaparte”.  Infuriating, isn’t it?

I thought of this when my good wife, who hails from Transylvania, glanced at the breakfast I had so beautifully prepared with a look of withering disdain.    What, on earth, is wrong with baked beans on Marmite toast accompanied by a mug of PG Tips?  Doubtless a couple of warm croissants would have gone down better especially if served with café au lait, but she is not getting it.   Nor, for that matter will there be anything resembling pain au chocolat or brioche.  

War has been declared on all things Gallic and my first move will take the form of tripe and onions served with steaming mushy peas.  Next there will be liver and bacon and that gustatory glory, a kind of mini haggis, but with a name that cannot be used in America.  This to be served with neeps & tatties.

Come Crispin Crispian (St. Crispen’s Day), we happy few will be drinking warm best bitter and munching roast beef, Yorkshire pudding with all the trimmings.  The grande finale will, of course, be steamed Spotted Dick.