The New Original Old Moron's Almanac
Vol. 3, Nr. 3 • June 16 - 22 • Bloomsday | Blaised and Confused | I Feel Like I Win When I Lose | And also much oxen. . .
Jun. 16 - I’ve got physical therapy this morning, an MRI this afternoon, and a nerve exam tomorrow morning, after which I’ll presumably be informed my shoulder requires surgery (which every doctor, nurse, and specialist I’ve seen has known for at least two months). I will further be informed that this surgery has been scheduled for early July—of 2027. I will then be spending most of the rest of the week banging my head against the Danish health care system trying to get the surgery moved up.
The only people awed by the wonders of the Danish health care system are those whose health has never depended on it.
Bloomsday at 121
Today is a day that highlights a schism in the western intellectual world like none other. Today is the 121st anniversary of Bloomsday.
June 16, 1904, is the date on which all the events depicted in James Joyce's famous novel Ulysses take place. There is therefore a lot of excitement in the sorts of intellectual circles in which I am not allowed to travel.
“Happy Bloomsday!” the straight-A English majors will greet one another joyously (at the coffeeshops and restaurants where they work). “Yes yes yes!” they'll exclaim. It will all be terrific fun.
They’ll feel smart and proud and better than the rest of us, and more power to them for that. I don't begrudge other people their gloats. I was once proud of my shotglass collection.
Personally, however, I think we ought to exhume the remains of James Joyce and feed them to rabid squirrels.
Ulysses, the best novel ever?
So says the celebrated (and controversial) Random House Modern Library 100 Best Books of the 20th Century. So say thousands of literary snobs. So say millions of men and women who've never even read it.
I myself haven't read Joyce's Ulysses (although I've tried), but that's beside the point. The issue doesn't have anything to do with the quality of his work, but the anti-democratic sentiments of its supporters.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not one of those weiners that thinks something has to be popular to be good, or one of those cranks that refuses to read anything “challenging.” I read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire from start to finish, including every footnote, but I would be the last person in the world to recommend anyone else do the same. (I'd recommend getting an abridged paperback version without any footnotes—or an audio book, preferably read by Scarlett Johansson.)
I would call Gibbon's masterwork one of the greatest histories of all time, because it succeeds brilliantly at what it sets out to achieve—as a work of history, not entertainment. (Which isn’t to say it isn’t entertaining, only that entertainment isn’t its purpose.)
A novel is by definition a work of entertainment, and although I'm perfectly capable of struggling through a challenging novel, the fact that it's challenging doesn't necessarily make it “good.” In the case of a novel, I'd have to say its value as entertainment is the most important measurement.
In other words, although I wouldn't say Murder on the Orient Express or The Shining were, in my opinion, “better” books than, say, Jane Eyre or The Idiot, that's only because the latter two were more enjoyable for me, personally, than the former two (which isn't to say they weren't also great fun). I'm guessing, however, that Agatha Christie and Stephen King have entertained more readers than Dostoyevsky and all the Brontes combined, so it would be hard for me to say that a Dostoyevsky novel was in any objective way superior to any given adventure of Hercule Poirot or Jane Marple.
I don't want to climb on the anti-intellectual bandwagon and rail at Joyce for being difficult. I consider my failure to read Ulysses a fault of my own, not Joyce's. On the other hand, calling a book that is best known for being monumentally difficult to read—and therefore often unread by persons otherwise interested in literature—the “greatest English-language novel of the 20th century” suggests a definition of great that I can't get behind. If it's so goddam great, why do so many people have so many problems just reading it?
And that's the real source of my problem with the literary elitists: it's as though they think it's great because of, rather than in spite of, its difficulty. Anything that difficult must be good for us, and literature is too important not to be good for us!
They've made Ulysses is the literary equivalent of broccoli.
I still say it's spinach, and I still say the hell with it
250th Anniversary of the Week
(We might as well make this an almost regular feature, since we can’t keep pretending to be amazed that, say, whattaya know, it’s exactly 250 years since this key moment in American history!)
On June 17, 1775, American forces were defeated by the British at Breed's Hill, near Boston, in the Battle of Bunker Hill, after famously withholding their fire until they could see the whites of their enemies' eyes. This battle should not be confused with that of Breed's Hill, fought on Bunker Hill, during which the Americans shot like hell at anything that moved.
53rd Anniversary of the Week
(This will not be an almost regular feature.)
On the evening of June 17, 1972, five men broke into the Democratic Party National Committee headquarters at the Watergate building in Washington, DC. They had hoped to bug the offices but were arrested before they could release any insects. Their arrests ultimately led to President Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974. (Nixon's resignation prior to 1974 is attributed to simple melancholy.)
I Feel Like I Win When I Lose
One of the most decisive battles in the history of Europe was fought in Belgium on June 18, 1815, as a resurgent Napoleon Bonaparte launched his last military offensive against the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian Marshal Blücher. Nearly 50,000 men were killed in the battle.
The battle was commemorated by Swedish sensation Abba in their 1970s hit, “Waterloo.”
Abba’s interpretation of Waterloo’s significance has been controversial from the start, as it tended to focus less on the military and political implications of the battle than on the feelings of euphoria typically incited by hormonal rushes of erotic excitement.
On June 18, 1817, Waterloo Bridge was opened over the River Thames in London, probably in anticipation of the great Abba hit.
Blaised and Confused
Blaise Pascal was born in France on June 19, 1623. At the age of 17 he wrote a paper entitled Essay on Conic Sections, which quickly became the best-selling paper on conic sections in European history and eventually inspired the classic French noir film, Death by Conic Section.
By the age of 22 Mr. Pascal had invented a calculator. Unfortunately he could not invent the battery, so he turned to religion.
He meant to get around to it right away, but in 1647 he ended up proving the existence of a vacuum. The famous French philosopher Rene Descartes visited Pascal, inspected his vacuum, and bemoaned its lack of attachable hoses. This caused an epistemological split that has endured to the present day.
(“The more I see of men,” Pascal observed at about this time, “the better I like my dog.” This was a famous quotation and can be found on many greeting cards.)
In 1653 he discovered Pascal’s Law of Pressure. A year later he was involved in a carriage accident that reminded him he had turned to religion. He turned back to it.
He began work on his famous Pensées (“Blather”) in 1656 and worked on it for three years. In the book, Pascal proved that if God didn't exist then believing in Him wouldn't hurt, whereas if He did exist, not believing would hurt like Hell.
It has been observed that if Pascal was wrong, not reading his book wouldn't hurt, and if he was right it wouldn't hurt either.
When he was 39 a malignant growth in his stomach spread to his brain and he died horribly, proving that unbearable pain is unbearable pain whatever you think of God or philosophy.
Takin' a Cotton to Gin
On June 20, 1793, Eli Whitney applied for a patent on his Cotton Gin. More affordable than gin distilled from grain alcohol and juniper berries, Cotton Gin quickly became the drink of choice among America's rural poor. This led to widespread outbreaks of Cotton Mouth and eventually caused the Civil War.
Scientific Summer
Summer begins on June 21 in the northern hemisphere (which happens to be this almanac's favorite hemisphere, with the possible exception of the southern one).
Summer is the period between the June solstice and the September equinox, and its broad appeal should therefore come as no surprise.
Twenty-five percent of all winning lottery tickets are issued in summer.
On June 22, 1933, German chancellor Adolf Hitler banned every political party except his own Evil Nazi Bastards from winning elections. The Evil Nazi Bastards swept the next elections, demonstrating the public's strong support for this measure.
Birthdays
June 16
Tupac Shakur (1971), Joyce Carol Oates (1938), Erich Segal (1937), and Stan “Not Clint Eastwood’s Father” Laurel (1890), and Geronimo (1829).
June 17
Venus Williams (1980), Joe Piscopo (1951), Barry Manilow (1946), Newt Gingrich (1943), Ralph Bellamy (1904), M.C. Escher (1898), and Igor Stravinski (1882).
(I had never seen that before. I will probably never view it again. But my life is the richer for having watched it.)
June 18
Carol Kane (1952), Isabella Rossellini (1952), Roger Ebert (1942), and Paul McCartney (1942).
“What’d ya do last night?”
“Went out for drinks and Paul McCartney popped up for a surprise mini-concert.”
“Video or it didn’t happen.”
June 19
The aforementioned Blaise Pascal, Paula Abdul (1962), Kathleen Turner (1954), Lou Gehrig (1903), Guy Lombardo (1902), and Moe Howard (1897).
Moe is their leader.
June 20
Brian Wilson (1942), John Goodman (1952), Danny Aiello (1933), Martin Landau (1931), Audie Murphy (1924), and Errol Flynn (1909).
RIP, Brian Wilson…
June 21
Prince William of England (1982), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905), Nicole Kidman (1967), Maureen Stapleton (1925), and Jane Russell (1921).
June 22
Freddie Prinze (1954), Meryl Streep (1949), Joseph Papp (1921), Billy Wilder (1906), and Giacomo Puccini (1858).
And in direct juxtaposition to the Waterloo video in which she featured above… (spoiler alert: if you haven’t seen Sophie’s Choice, do not watch.)
Man, that’s horrible. No one needs that on a Monday. Back to Abba.
Celebrate Good Times
June 16 is Imre Nagy's Death Day in Hungary and Youth Day in South Africa.
June 17 is Constitution Day in Iceland.
June 18 is Evacuation Day in Egypt, so get those bowels moving!
June 19 is Labor Day in Trinidad and Tobago and Jose Gervasio Artigas' Birthday in Uruguay.
June 20 is Martyr's Day in Eritrea and, less disturbingly, West Virginia Day in West Virginia.
June 21 is the Pagan holiday of Letha and it's Flag Day in that part of Denmark frequently referred to as “Greenland.”
June 22 is Anti-Fascist Struggle Day in Croatia.
Have a great week! Or don’t. It’s all up to you.
In my wayward youth it was considered terribly uncool to profess any enjoyment of the music of Barry Manilow or Abba, and (by an extraordinary lack of coincidence) this dismissive attitude was often held by the very same people who would browbeat the rest of the uncultured swine for not swooning over Joyce's Ulysses.
It was about that time I felt shamed into reading Ulyssses. Or rather, starting it. While I concede it is stylistically an impressive achievement, the experience left me very much less impressed by the sweeping pronouncement on quality or the lack thereof by the self-appointed gatekeepers.
I found that life was much better when you feel no pressure to be ashamed at enjoying a superbly crafted pop song, like many of those that flowed from the hand of Manilow or Andersson/Ulvaeus.
In fact, if pressed for my favorite disco song, I would most days pick the Donna Summer recorded version of "Could It Be Magic," which (along with the 1963 Dusty Springfield hit "I Only Want to Be with You") I consider near perfect examples of the best pop songs of their respective periods.
The whole experience did somewhat unfairly sour me on Joyce, with the result that it took some years before I picked up Dubliners, which I must admit is very good.