El Burro Volador

Today is a good day I think for talking about subtitles.  In this case I am not referring to the helpful captions which help foreign films (or foreign languages in domestic films) become intelligible to viewers, but instead the practice of adding an alternate or explanatory title on to the existing title of a book or movie.

Perhaps my favorite example would be Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.  A somewhat more literary example would be Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus.

This convention has been around for some time, and naturally the practice has been utilized for comedy, as in Christopher Moore’s You Suck: A Love Story.

Sometimes, after I have read a book whose title I have found to be somewhat misleading, I wish that I could append a subtitle as a sort of warning to prospective readers.  Recently, for example, Morgan Llywelyn’s book Finn Mac Cool, bearing as it does the name of one of Ireland’s greatest mythic heroes, came to my attention.  After having read it, I would like to amend the title to Finn Mac Cool: An Irish Legend Retold for Women Who Hate Ireland, and Don’t Much Care for Legends, Either.  I have long considered ol’ Morgan Llywelshman to be a mediocre writer devoted to a great subject, which was enough to tempt me into reading her earlier efforts Bard, which chronicles the coming of the Milesian Celts to Ireland, and 1916 which takes place during the Easter Rising.  She mangles Finn’s tale so badly, however, that I don’t think I’ll so much as crack the cover of one of her books again, except to scrawl obscenities inside all the copies at my local library.

The book I am just finishing today, by contrast, is one that needs no subtitle, despite a title that may seem short and vague.  Camus’ The Plague truly captures the essence of its subject, providing an almost journalistic attention to detail while using a handful of characters to explore the emotional and spiritual dimensions of an outbreak of the plague.

I wish I didn’t have to use this space to say goodbye to another murdered fighter.

Vernon Forrest was a superb athlete who reached the pinnacle of his profession in his two wins over “Sugar” Shane Mosley, considered by many to be the best fighter in the world at the time of their first encounter.

Outside the ring, he was known primarily for his charity work, making him one of boxing’s more wholesome and upstanding characters as well.

Even worse, when I was reading about his death on cnn.com, I learned that Alexis Arguello had died earlier this month.

Arguello was truly one of the giants of the sport (figuratively, of course, as “El Flaco Explosivo” never weighed in above 143 lbs. for a fight).  His battles against champions like Ernesto Marcel, Ruben Olivares, and Alfredo Escalera, not to mention his title defenses against former champions like Bobby Chacon and Bazooka Limon, would have capped a fine career all by themselves, but Arguello was a conqueror in the mold of Alexander the Great, and could not be satisfied while there was still an unvanquished foe to be found.  He kept moving up in weight after subjugating both the featherweight and junior lightweight divisions, adding the lightweight title to his laurels with a victory over champion Jim Watt and ending his career in a vain attempt to move up to junior welterweight that resulted in a pair of sensational fights against Aaron Pryor, the undefeated junior welterweight champion and future hall of famer.

Arguello also did credit to his sport outside the ring, entering politics in his home country of Nicaragua, where he was mayor of Managua at the time of his death.

Both men will be missed by a sport which honors its past champions and heroes, and by the fans who saw them at their best.

(Disclaimer: This post is about a fairly unusual thing that happened to Rebekah recently.  I have stripped out my usual theatrics as much as possible – this actually happened)

Rebekah went on her much-anticipated special zoo excursion Saturday.  They let her and her compatriots in early, says Rebekah and “It was pretty cool having only fifteen people in the whole zoo.”  Early morning is apparently a more interesting time to catch many of the animals, as well.  Rebek reports seeing the semi-mythical Denver Zoo Pallas’ Cat – which I haven’t seen in years of zoo-going, and honestly was beginning to think had died, the  “pallas’ cats are nocturnal” sign a low-cost alternative to procuring a replacement.  Also, Rebekah was surprised to see how lively certain zoo denizens were: “I think this was the first time I’ve ever seen the mishmi takin move” quipped our resident nature photographer (by the way, when reading up on mishmi takin just now, it turns out that the Denver Zoo is one of very few zoos worldwide to have the lazy little buggers).

One might have expected many more memorable moments to occur, especially when the bird-loving ‘Bekah was allowed to get up close and personal with some of the zoo’s raptors, but everything except the isolated impressions sketched out above was obliterated by the last segment of the day, a meet-and greet with a Serval.  “We were all seated in a line,” recalls Rebekah, “and they brought the serval in on a leash.”  Further questioning reveals that the predatory cat had “about a six foot leash,” and “wandered back and forth” between its handler and the guests.  Rebek particularly recalls the creature rubbing against her legs, much as a friendly housecat might do.  Due to this fawning behavior, and the keepers’ assurances that the serval had been trained to interact with people and exhibited in this fashion for the past several years, no one expected the imminent attack.

“It went up to this older lady, sniffed her arm for a few seconds, then bit her.  Hard.  There was blood spurting out,” recalls Rebekah.  According to our intrepid correspondent, the handlers got the serval out of there rapidly and with a minimum of fuss.  Although they appear to have initially underestimated the severity of the victim’s  injuries (“You could see distinct punctures in her arm for each of the serval’s teeth – upper and lower,” says Rebekah), they quickly got her patched up while simultaneously initiating “The Possum Protocol”.  “They brought out this possum to distract everybody,” says ‘Bekah, who ghoulishly continued to photograph the gory aftermath of the attack anyway.  The possum was placed on a tree stump, and given some fruits and nuts to eat in cute possum fashion (“aww lookit how it uses its little hands, it’s just like a people”), which apparently served to calm and distract almost everyone – including Rebekah, once the bandaging was over.  The only person who didn’t seem diverted by the funny-looking tree-rat was the bite victim herself.  “She didn’t say a word after the attack.  I think she was in shock.  When I saw how grey her face went at first, I thought she was going to have a heart attack and die right there.”

There were no further casualties, however, and the expedition concluded uneventfully.  As you might expect, Rebekah took hundreds of pictures, then ruthlessly culled them to produce a wonderful photographic record of her trip.  As soon as she posts these to her flickr, I will link it for y’all.  I am especially fond of her first picture of the possum, who may or may not have been aware of “The Possum Protocol” – its fur is disheveled, and it is pressed as flat as it can get to the top of the stump, clearly alarmed by the whole situation (especially the smell of blood and serval?), and it is staring off-camera, presumably at the bite victim from whom it is supposed to be distracting everyone.

(Note: According to the wikipedia article I linked, “most servals are friendly, good-natured, easily tamed, and make loving pets.” Obviously, servals are editing wikipedia articles now)

Today, for the second week in a row, I am going along with Rebekah to have breakfast with her father and sister (and maybe Taran?).  Things are good.  Also, this past Thursday, Pop and Merlyn and Bobby Wilcox went out on the pontoon boat again.  They seem to be having a really good time, which just cheers me up to no end, and as an added bonus, some of the tales they swap tend to trickle down to me – Dad retold one of Merlyn’s yarns about airplanes that just had me in stitches the other day.

Life is good.

Cue the trumpet fanfare, please, El Burro Volador just hit its 200th post!  Huzzah!  I would like to thank:

• The internet, for making it all possible
• Rebekah, for deciding to give me a blog for my birthday
• Dylan, for actually setting the darn thing up
• Clemmy, for being the star of the show
• The Minnesota chapter of AARP, for providing drama in the “comments” section
• And of course, my remaining handful of readers, for not letting my erratic posting, sporadic outbursts of negativity, and generally disagreeable demeanor scare them away

In possibly related news, there has been some talk recently of setting up a podcast “radio” show utilising the talents, or at least the narcissism and windbaggery, of myself and a couple of fellow internet rantmeisters.  We shall see if anything comes of it.  I am sceptical, but I guess I have always been told I have “a face made for radio” and if people listen to Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, and Jim Rome I suppose we might find a listenership as well.

‘Bekah is off on another one of her missions, so I have been left her to degenerate as usual.  Since I have started playing Guitar Hero again, and since Rebekah loathes Guitar Hero, I decided to look on her absence as an opportunity to have a marathon jam.  Eventually however, my left hand gave out, and I ruefully unplugged my pretend rockstar machine, and settled down to watch a movie.

Boy am I glad that I did.  Last night’s film selection was The Wrestler, and I will tell you right now that all the nice things being said about it are true.  It has alot of important things to say about the America I live in, but it doesn’t let them get in the way of telling a very genuine, very human story.  I have been a fan of pro wrestling at various times in my life, and frankly, I am probably as surprised as most are that a film about a pro wrestler can be the vehicle for this kind of narrative, and this kind of insight into our world.

First and foremost: Rebekah is the boss of me.  And, in accordance with her request, I am including an official notice here in the body of the blog that Rebekah does not, I repeat, not take a prurient interest in barnyard animals.  She was worried that, as I never explained the context of the quote which she left out as a booby-trap, people might wonder just what kind of magazine she was reading.  For the record, it was National Geographic, the article was about a master spelunker nicknamed “the goat” (for his sureness of foot, presumably) and “the sphincter” is the name spelunkers have given to a particular narrowing of the well-known cave which he was exploring in the article.

Also, I have resumed playing Guitar Hero, moving up at last to the “medium” difficulty level, and it turns out that the song “Take It Off” by The Donnas is also the boss of me.  I’ll get it though, you just see if I don’t…

Arturo Gatti was, perhaps more than any other boxer I’ve ever seen, built to create exciting fights.  Although he wasn’t entirely devoid of technical proficiency, he made a career out of fighting more sophisticated boxers, so he was often at a perceived disadvantage.  He possessed two great equalizers, however, in his dangerous left hook and enormous fighting spirit.  Even though he was often behind on the scorecards in some of his most memorable fights, there was always the feeling that if he could land a big punch, or land enough hard punches, he could come back and win.  In fact, he often did win, because he fought his heart out every time.

Once it was established that Gatti was a thrilling comeback fighter, it became almost normal to see him lose a few rounds, then begin to rally back.  Just when this risked becoming a mundane occurrence, however, a new element was introduced into the mix – the element of human frailty.  Arturo was always something of a “bleeder”, and as scar tissue built up around his often-cut eyes, they cut easier and easier.  There was always the question of whether or not he would be able to stage a comeback before the fight was stopped, as it was against Angel Manfredy.  Likewise, late in his career he twice broke one of his hands during a fight, but rallied back to win on both occasions.

The high drama of an Arturo Gatti fight was one of the finest things in boxing for many years.  In a sport where long-anticipated matchups fizzle as often as they pay off, Arturo was a gold standard – if you paid to see him fight, you would get one helluva show, every time.  This reputation became more valuable than an undefeated record or a title belt – Gatti was a true “people’s champion” beloved by the fans.  He was also well liked by most who knew him in the boxing community, and now that his life has been cut short far too soon, he will be missed by many, many people.

I have been on something of a tear lately, reading-wise.  After finishing Welcome to the Monkeyhouse, I thought I’d head back to fantasy, to keep myself “steeped in the milieu” as I like to put it, for purposes of my Dungeon-Mastering gigs – I am lining up my second weekly gig – it won’t pay what the first one does, but it will be via the magic of the interweb, so it should be low-hassle, and, if we come to terms on price, I’ll have a steady income of about $500 a month from roleplaying games, which is pretty sweet.

Anyhow, I like to read what I describe, somewhat uncharitably, as “pulp” fantasy to charge my DMing batteries – if I read the really good stuff, I am always tempted to emulate it, so I’m always on the lookout for mediocre fantasy, as strange as that may seem.  I ransacked my shelves for a good candidate (I am as avid a book buyer as I am a book reader, and buying them is quicker and easier, so I have shelves of unread books), and turned up what looked like a real winner.  It was a novel called The Thran, and it bore the logo of the Magic: The Gathering card game – exploiting a game license is nearly always a strong indicator of mediocrity.  Also, the author, J. Robert King, was someone I’d never heard of.

It turned out to be a fun read, certainly very good mediocre fiction.  A well-realized villain always does a great deal for a fantasy novel, and this one in particular was about the villain ascendant, which is really difficult to pull off – how does one walk that fine line between hope and despair, having the villain “win” and yet still be to some extent thwarted by the heroes.  Many people consider The Empire Strikes Back to be the strongest of the Star Wars film franchise, likely because it pulls off this same daunting task.

Anyhow, since then I’ve returned to my List and read the next prescribed book, Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal.  A landmark in the thriller genre, it follows a methodical assassin hired to kill the President of France.  It was widely praised for its authentic grounding in 1960s France, and indeed, I had no idea that the country had been as interesting as this book makes it seem at any point in the 20th century.  It also steadily ratchets up the pacing and suspense until the ending just flies by.

Today I’m starting Morgan Llywelyn’s Finn Mac Cool, one of her trademark “historical” novels of Ireland, this time centered on one of the Emerald Isle’s mythic heroes.  It should tide me over until I can get my hands on the next list book, Albert Camus’ The Plague.