Yellowstone Snow, Hungry Wolves, & the Tumble Inn

Posted on July 1, 2011 by williamjcobb

So I’ve been traveling in Wyoming for 11 days, kayaking & hiking, not to mention buying stuffed animals for my daughter—dinosaur (diplodocus), river otter, deer, yellow horse, dinosaur (pterodactyl), and something I’m forgetting I’m sure. We camped in the Grand Tetons and soaked at Thermopolis Hot Springs, where families around the pool exchanged wildlife stories of visiting Yellowstone. One family told how they saw a wolf eat a baby elk, which of course freaked the kids out (they nodded solemnly as the story was told). We saw a grizzly, several golden eagles, elk, mule deer, buffalo, and the biggest porcupine in the west. Yellowstone had an astonishing amount of snow—three feet deep as far as the eye could see on the high plateau when you first drive into the park on the southern end, passing Lewis Lake and West Thumb. Here’s a nostalgic neon sign we passed, in the Abandoned America category:

Now I’m glad to be home in Colorado, where it’s cool and rainy today.

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The Silence of the Swedish Lambs: “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” or Our Misbegottten Love of Serial Killers (Stories)

Posted on June 14, 2011 by williamjcobb

So a year ago I picked up the Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo novel in paperback just to see what all the fuss was about, and I couldn’t really get into it and become a fan, mainly because the style/story seemed pretty ordinary killer/suspense stuff, rather flatly written. (I know, I know: Everyone else loves it. Good for them.) But I’ve just watched the Swedish film version, and it’s one of those rare cases where the film works in ways the novel didn’t for me: For one thing, it portrays a gorgeous vision of the world, all snow and glossy urban scenes and forests, moody, well-dressed people, much mystery about everything. But I was struck at its similarities to The Silence of the Lambs (1991), all these years later. Lisbeth is the haunted, victimized Agent Starling, a great character to watch. The framed flowers are a natural-world metaphor that compares to the exotic moths in Silence. The serial killer confession (I won’t name names, for those who still haven’t seen it) out-creeps Hannibal Lecter’s articulate musings. But the film is hypnotic with images, painterly and beautiful, even when it’s showing horror.
As I’ve taught Gothic Lit for years, I’ve often been struck at how much the reading public loves serial killer stories. Why? We don’t want to be the victim, but we like to imagine others as the victim, as the killer. To revel in the dark side? For catharsis? A fascination with the gruesome? All of the above? Probably so. And many more oddities of human nature. Acting out murder fantasies via fiction. It’s probably healthier than tweeting pictures of your organs to anonymous strangers, esp if you’re a politician.  

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Dream Hooey: Inception Island, or a Contrarian’s View of “Inception” and “Shutter Island”

Posted on June 10, 2011 by williamjcobb

So none other than knockout writer Susan Orlean (whose book on Rin Tin Tin is coming out soon, I believe) turned me on to the world of streaming video last fall, telling me that she finds that much better than any satellite/cable TV in her home in upstate New York. Laggard that I am, I’ve just recently picked up my Apple TV. It’s so small and minimal it’s freaky—a little black box about the size of a deck of cards, a remote with essentially three buttons on it. But connected to Netflix streaming video, it’s kind of amazing. Gone are the days of same-old movies on DirecTV! Gone are the day so seeing He’s Just Not That Into You and Lady Gaga’s latest fashion show/concert listed in maddening, multiple timeslots! Variety is here!
So two of the movies I watched (which are not on DirecTV yet) both featured Leo DiCaprio, and I chose these two to catch up on what my students were talking about, generally expressing how much they loved them: Inception and Shutter Island. Inception is great eye candy, but it didn’t add up to much, and I lost interest in all the dream hooey as it went on and on. Shutter Island, on the other hand, had a healthy dose of dream hooey, or alternate reality, and I thought it really paid off. The final line DiCaprio says rings out as a real kicker, like the final line Charlize Theron utters in Monster.

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Arizona Is Burning, and We're Breathing It

Posted on June 7, 2011 by williamjcobb

Smoke from the Bear Wallow Fire in Arizona—several hundred miles away but over 233,000 acres in size—is so thick here we can’t see the valley floor from our hillside home, just a mile or so away. We’re all coughing and throats are scratchy. I’m reading James Hansen’s Storms of My Grandchildren, about global warming, and it seems that it’s here. Meanwhile every Republican who ever said anything in support of mitigating climate change is having to backtrack and now deny it, just to court the Conservative-Stupid Vote, the Know Nothing Party rises again. Here’s the NY Times report about the Arizona fire this morning:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/us/08wildfires.html?_r=1&hp

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The Summer of the Bears, Hungry & Marauding

Posted on June 1, 2011 by williamjcobb

So in my corner of Colorado there was a bit of snow drought (March was dry), which caused the bears to come out of hibernation early, before there was food for them. Now there are roving gangs of hungry bears marauding across the countryside. We’ve seen two in our yard, one a big glossy black bruin who ripped open a hole in our woodshed door to get at the garbage cans stored inside, and another roan-colored youngster who gallops across our yard regularly. We love our bears but we love our cat more, and were briefly in a panic as we thought one of them had eaten Iris, but thankfully she showed up after being missing for a day. Here’s the damage to the woodshed, which I’ll have to repair later this week. The hole doesn’t look that big, but the bear did, maybe 250 lbs or so:

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HBO's Film of "Too Big to Fail" a Great Cast

Posted on May 26, 2011 by williamjcobb

So last year I was trying to read Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Too Big to Fail, which I admire much, although I did find it ‘too long to read,’ essentially because my schedule is too busy. It’s all about the financial meltdown in 2008, a behind-the-scenes look at the power brokers (and sleazeballs) in the major investment houses and financial regulatory agencies, such as Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Warren Buffet, and Tim Geithner—at least those are the ‘good’ guys, though I think ‘slightly better’ might be more accurate term. A number of these figures come across as more interesting than you might think, and a number come across as smug capitalist pigs, too. The HBO film of the book recently premiered and is now in numerous timeslots, and it’s a much smaller time commitment to get the same story, though without a lot of the backstory that makes the book worthwhile (and too long). The actors in the film really carry the day: William Hurt, Ed Asner, Paul Giamatti, etc. It’s in the tradition of HBO’s good series of contemporary politico films, like the excellent Recount, about the 2004 election.

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S.C. Gwynne’s "Empire of the Summer Moon"—Great Comanche History

Posted on May 25, 2011 by williamjcobb

So if you’re interested in Native American history, S.C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon (Scribner 2010) is a great read. Most of it concerns the Comanches, who essentially ruled and terrorized the Great Plains of Texas/Oklahoma areas during the 18th/19th centuries, which all essentially came to a close around 1874. It’s certainly a gruesome story, considering the attacks on white settlers that occurred during this period, and the Comanches dominance of other Plains tribes. But once it reaches the story of Quanah Parker, sometimes considered the last great chief of the Comanches, it provides a useful overview of Native American history at the end of the Indian Wars. There’s a triumvirate of excellent histories that give a good overview of the demise of Plains Indian culture: The Journals of Lewis & Clark, Evan S. Connell’s Son of the Morning Star (about Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn), and Gwyne’s Empire of the Summer Moon. One major contrast: On Lewis & Clark’s 1804-5 journey the only violence between L&S’s party and the Indians occurred very late in the trip, when some Blackfeet tried to steal some weapons, and one of the party killed an Indian. The violence then heats up as the Plains Indians realize what is happening, that they’re being driven off the land, and strike back. Ultimately it seems a clash of technology, probably inevitable, although Connell’s book makes the most persuasive argument for how it could have happened another way.

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The End of the World, Yawn—Or a Stupidity Gauge

Posted on May 22, 2011 by williamjcobb

So last night I’m watching ABC News (which I do just to keep an eye on what idiocy is in the mainstream media—answer: plenty) and they actually interviewed some craggy old nutcase who is apparently the “prophet” behind today’s Rapture event, and I’m thinking, How stupid can we get? Pretty stupid, that’s for certain. It makes me think of the old drunk in the diner in Hitchcock’s The Birds, croaking, “It’s the end of the world!”
An even stronger gauge of stupidity, probably embraced by the same crowd, is the new book out about the Birther controversy. It’s embarrassing, is what it is. But at least Trump seems to be fading fast. And on the Republican side, that windbag Gingrich is actually in trouble for voicing some moderate opinions, good God.

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Christo's "Over the River" Project, Art in My Back Yard

Posted on May 19, 2011 by williamjcobb

So there’s a piece in the NY Times today about Christo’s latest art installation project, Over the River, which is (figuratively speaking) in my Colorado back yard: It will be located, if it happens, in the Bighorn Canyon between Salida and Canyon City, which is about 30 miles north of my house in Custer County. I’m all for it, and if you read the piece, I think the arguments against it are iffy. I agree with the fellow who points out the canyon, which has a number of bighorn sheep, also has much traffic on the highway and a railroad line, and the sheep seem to do just fine with those distractions. (Plus the note that they allow hunting makes the argument seem a bit absurd to me.) Support Christo’s Over the River! I think it would be way cool. Here’s the link to the Times piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/science/earth/18christo.html?hpw

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Neros Fiddling While the World Burns, Sooner Than You Think: the National Research Council's Report on Climate Change

Posted on May 15, 2011 by williamjcobb

So I’ve been (mildly) obsessed with Climate Change for a decade or more now, and am thoroughly disgusted at the anti-science, anti-education, pro-stupidity behavior of most of the Republican Party (i.e. Texas hick rep Joe Barton), or more accurately known as the Know-Nothing Party, even in the face of unified agreement of scientists and experts. So last week arrived the report titled “America’s Climate Choices” via the National Research Council, and I’ll note that even some Republicans advocated its stark and alarming findings. The whole report can be found here:
http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/materials-based-on-reports/reports-in-brief/ACC-final-brief.pdf
We’ve reached the point that only a combination of stupidity and greed can be offered as motivation for some of the anti-mitigation efforts that basically rule Congress: Big Oil has bought off the chumps, and our children will suffer. We don’t need to argue about the grandchildren. Children. It’s all happening faster than predicted and will likely have long-term consequences. Obama’s administration hasn’t been able to get anything done, in part because of the myth that these mitigation efforts will be expensive and ‘hurt business.’ (And I blame the Democratic-controlled Congress of his first two years for that, too.) They’re all short sighted and bought off by business. It’s hard not to shake one’s head and growl, “We’re doomed, man. We’re doomed.”
Here’s a picture of my Sangre de Cristo mountains this week, which have suffered a snow drought this year, even though most of Colorado has had a good snow season, due to La Niña.

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