Movies You May Not Like: The Favourite

For some reason New Years Day in Hampton Roads is always gray, damp, and unseasonably warm.  It sucks.

So its a perfect day to go to the movies, and it has become something of a tradition for me to pack myself off to the theater to start the new year.  This year, I saw The Favourite, because it was a movie that my wife did not really want to see and it would allow me to get back home by 1:00 in the afternoon, just in time for the customary Upper Malakvian New Years lunch of salted Cod, salted Potatoes, salted beans, salt, and Schlivovitz -- who wouldn't want to miss that!

The Favourite was very well done, engrossing, and kind of unsettling, in a way, mostly due to how the movie ends.  Part farce, part political drama, it is (loosely - very, very loosely) based on actual events, where the favored advisor to Queen Anne, the Duchess of Marlborough, is slowly supplanted by Abigail Masham (nee Hill).  It imagines them in a sort of love triangle, which is, apparently, actually possible but not substantiated.  I think its been shortlisted for some awards and for good reason - Emma Stone and Olivia Coleman give fantastic performances; Coleman's Queen Anne in particular being fascinating.  The costuming and sets are incredible, it is well shot, the soundtrack is haunting.  I would recommend it, though I found the movie a bit depressing, in that it is another one of those movies that has no real hero, no positive influence, and the ending is abrupt and stark and really sticks with you.  I think the last good movie in which I saw something of the heroic was Dunkirk, and that was going on a year and a half ago.  These are dystopian times.  And I am sure there is more that I can say about the movie's sexual dynamics and the #MeToo movement and all of that stuff, the cultural moment we find ourselves in and how the movie reflects on some of that.  But my friends, I simply don't have the cultural acumen to do it.

Olivia Coleman as Queen Anne in The Favourite

But I do have some historical acumen, and that might come in handy if you decide the movie.

Here's the thing:  aside from the fact that it was set in the 1600s or 1700s, I had little idea what it was going to be about.  I knew there was a Queen, and some sort of power struggle, and that it was supposed to be good, and because I do whatever the New York Times tells me to do I should go see it; but that was about it.

To my joy, I found that I was in the one situation in my life where my smattering of British history was actually useful, as I could draw on some useless trivia to give me a firmer footing in a film that otherwise may have been rather confusing from the start.  Maybe the film-makers would rather you didn't have any background at all - but I found it to be useful.  

It isn't much, but this is what I brought to the table: 

So at the beginning of the movie there is reference to a war that is ongoing and draining the British purse, and this war comes to dominate a lot of the political machinations the characters go through as they struggle over the decision to fund it by taxation or sue for Peace from an advantageous position.

Now,  I know that I recently said "No More War Movies" in 2019, but fortunately the combat is kept far away and my new year's resolution is intact.  

Anyways, in this scene at the beginning of the movie, Queen Anne speaks of a great victory and, thinking the war is over, is prepared to give the Duchess of Marlborough a palace.  

The war in question:  The War of the Spanish Succession, fought in the early 1700s over who would be king of Spain (I suppose).  The Bourbons in France had a claim, and the British, Dutch, and others were determined to stop them.  Much of the war was actually fought in what is today Belgium (I think).  

The victory is probably the Battle of Blenheim, a massive victory by the British and their coalition over the French in 1704 that changed the course of the struggle.  The leader of the British forces was John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, husband to (and here is where the connection comes in) Sarah, the Duchess of Marlborough and aide to Queen Anne.  And yes, John Churchill is the ancestor of THAT Churchill, old huffen und puffen, trinken und sleepen Winston Churchill himself, with those stupid paintings of his.  You know who was a great painter?  Who could paint one room, in one afternoon, two coats?  I'll give you two guesses. 

The palace proposed at the beginning of the movie was built in honor of the Battle of Blenheim, and is actually called Blenheim Palace.  I think in the movie they refer to its name one time.  We also see the Duke of Marlborough (who second to Wellington is probably Britain's greatest military leader of all time) occasionally but he is a minor character.

And that is really it.  The war would drag on until 1714.  Of the political intrigue in Queen Anne's Court I had little notion.  

As I write all this, it makes me think that maybe it was a conscious choice of director Yorgos Lanthimos to divorce the action on screen from the details of the actual back story, placing the action in a sort of alternative reality where the rumors behind the relationship between the three protagonists is allowed to flourish with all of its Sapphic fire.  If the movie hewed more to a more likely reality it may have only left a sort of tension between the three that may or may not have been sexual in nature, though again the actual relationship between these three women is, based on what I know, difficult to be sure of.  They may has simply been every effusive in their letters to each other, or they might have been true bed fellows.  The only ones who really know, probably, are Queen Anne, the Duchess of Marlborough, and Abigail Masham.  And maybe their dogs and those rabbits the Queen liked to keep in her bed chamber.  All long gone.    

The ending of the movie is what makes it so dissonant, but I will leave that to the brave.  The Favourite; run time two hours; rated R for some fruity language, some sex acts, and the odd nipple here and there.  

  

In Which the Link Between a Luscious Nude and a Factory for War Machines is Pointed Out.

So here is a question for you:  What could possibly be the link between this:

Cabanel's Birth of Venus, sometimes referred to simply as "The painting of the woman with the boobs and the water".

And this?

Newport News Shipbuilding, sometimes referred to as the place where they build the things that launch the things that deliver things that make other things go boom in the name of Freedom.  

The answer is this:

An unlikely link between the two, though if you are smart you can probably guess what is going on here.

So what is all this then?

The first picture is The Birth of Venus, by Alexandre Cabanel, a huge hit at the Paris Salon of 1863.  Napoleon III, upon seeing the painting, purchased it immediately; probably not because of its artistic value but rather because in addition to some highly polished brushwork and a rather realistic depiction of an ocean wave it features - rather prominently - a very naked woman.  Perfect for adorning the study of the man who has everything and is worried that his adventures in Mexico are beginning to flounder. 

All joking aside, though, the painting really was very much adored.  It was just within the bounds of propriety of the time, where painting nudes was okay if it fell into the historic/mythological schools of French painting, featuring seamless brush strokes, accurate depictions, and a purpose of either imparting a moral lesson, exemplifying beauty, or telling a story from France's glorious past.  We might look at this Cabanel and see it as something not much better than soft core pornography, laden with all the chauvenistic baggage that western culture has loaded on to itself.  But for the Parisian of 1863 it checked the boxes.  The most scandalous aspect of the painting, the thing that was up for debate at the time, was the look that Cabanel's Venus is giving as she peeks out from under her arm.  Is she actually in repose, or do her eyes suggest a sort of post-coital contended grogginess?  The critics in Paris battled it out, could not agree on any kind of consensus, and the mild whiff of controversy only added to the overall warm reception to Cabanel's work.

I'm getting a bit off track here, but it should be noted that the adoration of Cabanel's nude was in direct contrast to the derision hefted almost joyfully against Manet's Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, exhibited at the 1863 Salon des Refuses (a special sort of extra Salon held featuring paintings rejected by the Paris Salon jury of 1863, after there were objections that the jury was too harsh).  One of the problems with the painting, as the Parisians saw it, was that the men were wearing contemporary clothes and were in a contemporary setting.  In 1863 this just wasn't normally done.  Pictures of everyday life took a back seat to stunning histories or mythological settings, usually featuring men wearing nothing but plummed trojan helmets and women in various stages of undress, modesty sometimes preserved by the fortuitous fold of a toga.

Manet was one of the first to paint the modern people of Paris with all their glory and grit going about their everyday lives, doing things like going to horse races, listening to music, drinking absinthe, and having lunch with naked women in the city parks, because that is apparently what normal French people do.  Anyhow, the idea that painting contemporary people going about their ordinary lives could actually be meaningful required the artistic mores of the day to undergo a pretty significant adjustment.

Secondly, the painting depicts the woman as a likely prostitute; the everyday clothing of the men, the casual discarding of her clothes, and the frog placed towards the right side of the painting all suggest that this woman was being paid to be there, and though prostitution was rife in Paris in the 1860s it was not kosher to depict the workers who plied their trade.

Third and final:  critics found the woman in Manet's painting to be ugly, and painted without technique or depth, the uniform pallor of her skin akin to a photograph.  People didn't like that.  Though somewhat risque, Cabanel's Venus by comparison was seen as a charming painting of a beautiful naked goddess as opposed to a rather brash work depicting a scene of questionable morality that did nothing to further the study of the beautiful. 

Manet's controversial Le déjeuner sur l'herbe.  I have no idea what the bather in the background is there for.  Don't ask.  

So now to Newport News Shipbuilding.  The Shipyard was founded in 1886 as the Chesapeake Dry Dock and Construction Company by Collis P. Huntington. Long before that, he made a ridiculous amount of money building railroads (he was heavily involved in building the transcontinental railroad), and was known for being fairly unethical, which in the world of 19th century business and politics is really saying something.   Still, he is known for saying the words that are inscribed onto every shipbuilder's heart:  "We shall build good ships here;  at a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always good ships".  Later, when he found out the rum runner he was building for Johnny K. Chesterton & Sons was going to be behind schedule because the paint had failed due to the high levels of humidty present during the summer in Hampton Roads (something he clearly did not think hard enough about), he uttered the immortal shipyard motto:  "It is what it is."

When his first wife died of cancer in 1883 he married Arabella Yarrington Worsham, a Richmond courtesan who somehow struck up a liason with Collis P. Huntington after the Civil War, perhaps thanks to Huntington's love of cards and gambling and her presence at a popular Richmond faro house doing...stuff?  Not sure, really.  The details are vague.  But she became his mistress at the age of 19 and was moved to New York City with her entire family where she and Collis carried on for 14 years until finally getting married in 1884.

Even before their marriage, Arabella was one of the richest women in America.  And when you are filthy rich, with all the power and status that that entails, you need a painting of yourself, a portrait, that shows to everyone else how fucking filthy rich you are, yes?

And here is where we come full circle back to Cabanel.  In addition to being a very gifted painter of T&A, he was a renowned portrait painter.  Portrait painting was the bread and butter of the many less successful artists of the time and Cabanel was so wealthy and famous he really didn't need the money - but he apparently enjoyed it, and many of his portraits of fully clothed and very wealthy men and women (even one of Napoleon III himself in 1865) would receive acclaim in Paris Salons well beyond that of 1863. He gained international fame and during the Gilded Age was the best known French painter in America, aside from maybe Messionier; many Americans - especially women - desperately wanted to have Cabanel paint them.  It was a fairly meaningless status symbol, the tricked out SUV of the day.   

Cabanel never came to America, so in 1881 or 1882 Araballa Worsham arranged through an agent to sit for Cabanel and she made the trip over to his Paris studio to sit - or rather stand - for her portrait, which is the third picture shown above, entitled "Mrs. Collis P. Huntington", completed in 1882.  I would note it is unusual, in that most Cabanel portraits of the time were 3/4 length, but here we have Bella Huntington in full length glory, perhaps showing the stature she commanded at the time.  It is also noted that the title of the painting seems like a reverse anachronism, as Arabella was not married to Huntington at the time; though perhaps in 1882, with his first wife (Elizabeth Stoddard)* dying and Arabella well established in society, she may as well have been. 

So there you have it.  The future wife of the founder of Newport News Shipbuilding had her portrait painted by the very same man that wowed all the men of Paris with a painting that they could study with great intent in the name of the artistic beauty that it inherently stood for, examining some parts perhaps more closely than others.

It is amazing, sometimes, how such things are connected to each other.

The portrait was donated to a museum in California by her son Archer Huntington, who incidentally founded the Mariner's Museum.  But that, to use one of the cheapest endings of all time, is another story.

If you want to learn more, I recommend the book "The Judgment of Paris" by Ross King and a couple of articles online; one about Arabelle Huntington and the other about Cabanel and his portrait painting.  A lot of the facts I allude to, but perhaps don't quite set correctly, come from these sources.

NOTE:

*Aside from the fact that she was Huntington's childhood sweetheart, little is known of Elizabeth Stoddard.  She apparently lived a rather quiet life in her New York City mansion as her husband criss-crossed the country.  It is possible that Elizabeth knew of and accepted Arabella, as documentation shows that Arabella and her mother helped during Elizaebth's illness.  One wonders what kind of woman she was, and what kind of life she lead.  

Books You May Not Like -- Steel Boat, Iron Hearts, by Hans Goebeler, with an assist by John Vanzo

This is the story of one man's (Hans Goebeler's) experiences in the Kriegsmarine as a U-boat crew member, specifically aboard the U-505.  The U-505 has some distinction, not necessarily for it's combat record but rather because it was captured by a US Hunter Killer Group (a naval squadron made up of carrier based aircraft and destroyers, created to run U-boats to the ground and sink them or take them a prize) and is currently at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.  It is one of the few boats to actually survive the war...and Hans Goebeler was one of only 8,000 (out of about 38,000) German submariners to survive the Battle of the Atlantic.

So Hans joins the Kriegsmarine in 1941 and manages to get into the submarine force by virtue of his skill, demeanor, and the fact that he was pretty short for a stormtrooper.  It's a pretty unflinching look at life inside a World War II Submarine.

I mean, imagine it...you and, oh, 55 of your closest friends are stuck inside a steel tube that is 200 feet long and (here is the kicker) about 14 feet wide, for about 3 months or so...maybe less if the shipyard workers of Lorient sabotaged the boat - which they did often.  You have no air conditioning, and you and all of your buds have to survive on the 64 gallons of water a day produced by the distillery units...enough water to cook and to drink, serve whatever mechanical needs are necessary, but not enough for anyone to shower.  Ever.

You like eggs?  I hope so.  You have to eat dozens of them before they go bad as all the food sort of starts to rot in the warm waters off the coast of Africa.  For the rest of your life, you will hate them; your love of eggs is the first casualty of the war, for you.

You play a deadly game of cat and mouse, your goal: to sink Allied merchant shipping.  But while you are hunting you are also hunted...allied ships ping you with acoustic sonar and try to sink you with depth charges, but even more frightening is Allied air power, looking for boats having to recharge batteries on the surface (U-505 was not equipped with a snorkel), which gets harder to avoid as the war goes on.

And so you patrol the seas, hopefully sink some merchant shipping, and pull back into Lorient with three months of stink and facial hair on you, victory pennants flying, your only thoughts of the companionship you will find in the red light district...

U-505 was not a lucky ship.  It had a couple moderately successful cruises, but its first skipper was relieved after sinking a sailing ship belonging to the President of Columbia (inducing them to declare War on Germany, which I am sure did the Allied cause a lot of good), and the second skipper never won the hearts of his men because he was a douche.  He wasn't very good at submarining either, and in over a year at the healm only sunk one or two ships.  But by 1943 the war was going against the Germans.  The U-boat fleet was subjected to incredible sabotage (I think almost through all of 1943 the U-505 only got out on an actual patrol once, where it was heavily damaged in the Carribean and yet still made it back to port...perhaps the most heavily damaged U-boat to ever make it back, a testament to the professionalism of the crew).  At last the skipper committed suicide on board, the only submarine skipper to do so while on duty.

And so it goes on.  Finally the boat is captured by the US in June 4, 1944, the first enemy boat to be captured by the US Navy since the war of 1812.  The crew spends the rest of the war in America, at a prisoner of war camp I think in Louisana.  Because the US doesn't want the Germans knowing the boat was captured, the men's families are not notified that they are still alive (a violation of the Geneva Convention!! or at least so says Hans).  But finally the war ends and they are allowed to write home again.  Hans and his crew were transfered to Scotland, where they broke rocks as penance until 1947, when at last they were allowed to return to Germany.  All were required to disavow the Government, but Hans, loyal to the end, jumps of the train and sneaks in to the country, loyalty intact.

And that is sort of the striking thing about this book.  Hans is completely unapologetic for serving in the Kriegsmarine during the war, and makes a point often of saying so.  I am not sure he really needs to be apologetic -- though most American readers will probably want to know how he reconciles his pride in serving in the U-boat fleet with the fact that he was fighting for Nazi Germany and what it stood for.  The answer is he doesn't, at least in the book.  I am not sure he mentions the plight of the Jews at all...he rather points out the devastation of the Allied air raids in Lorient and Germany, as well as the struggle against Communism which to him was paramount and got underway when he joined up in 1941.   As to his opinions on the many dark sides of the Nazi regime, well, we never are privy to those.

And if you also don't like a lot of "wink wink nudge nudge" here's what we did on the Rue Pastorale, you probably won't like this book.  Hans recounts his many adventures ashore with something a bit of "these were the best days of our lives" lavisious glee...though he never goes into the details (though there is one rather hilarious story that actually takes place on the boat when this guy, he...).  He had a very good time.  But I don't begrudge him that -- if you or I were young and single and had to spend two months or more in a steel tube with rotting food and shit in buckets, pulling boring duties punctuated with sheer terror, I imagine we might well behave the same.  I actually am sure I almost certainly would have.  After a while though, it does kind of get old.  It's like "yes, Hans, we get it, we get it.  You fucked a lot of women, and you drank a metric tonne of booze."  It's like the opening scene from Das Boot replayed many, many times over.  But hey, that's the way it was.

Before you write off Hans as a Nazi playboy, you should also know that he and his shipmates served with honor and devotion, or at least as much honor as one could under the circumstances, as most naval men always have. They made it a practice to cripple a ship and then make sure most of the enemy sailors aboard had gotten off before sinking it, after which they rendered what aid to survivors they could.  Not much, but a bit of food and water before slipping away.  He also moved to America after he retired from work in Germany, to Chicago to be with his beloved boat, and was instrumental in getting veterans of the U-505 and the men from the US Navy who captured the German sub together, where none showed any will will towards the other, even though its not unlikely that the men sitting across the table from Hans killed some of his friends on other boats.  The kind of binding up, that sort of coming together, is a lesson to us all, I'd say, as is Hans pride in his service.

So yes.  If you are interested in what it was like to be on a World War II submarine, this is a rather good book.  It's a quick read, a straightforward account, and it gives a different perspective on the war in total.  

 

In which Nick reads "The First World War", by John Keegan, for the Second Time

As this year marks the 100th anniversary of the Somme and the Battle of Verdun, I figured the least I could do was read a book about World War I this summer.

So I selected John Keegan's summary history of the conflict, aptly titled "The First World War".  I had actually read it once before, about 11 years ago during my senior in college. I remember it being something of a slog, which was strange because other Keegan books I had read had been on point.

But the devil you know, right?  So rather than spend money on a different summary history I decided to spend money on a digital copy of a book that I had already read once before.  Funny old world, eh?

Maybe it is because I am more mature, but this time I found the book to be much more compelling.  Keegan does an able job of summarizing the start of the war and the opening battles.  I think something we often forget is that the first two months of the war were very fluid and dynamic, with some as room yet for heroism and initiative.

As things settle into stalemate and the fruitless trench warfare that most of us think of as we think of WWI, Keegan struggles to give the war some perspective, some meaning, though even he admits for a military historian charting the course of the war is very depressing indeed.

It actually makes the most sense if you look at it from the German perspective, which Keegan does well.  After the Schlieffen Plan fails (Keegan argues that even the architects of the plan knew it could never really work) the Germans basically realize that their best bet is to hold out on the Western Front and try to win against their weaker Russian enemies to the east.  If they can once again fight a one front war they might be able to amass enough men in the west to defeat a weakened France and a resolute Britain, before their country itself is exhausted.  With the exception of the aberration of Verdun, it is a plan the Germans stick to as the years go by, and it might have worked if...

You guessed it, those pesky Americans!  Over Thereeeeee....Over Thereeeee.....USA!  USA!  USA! USA!  Get me a Twinkie and buy me some steak, the Americans save those sorry French asses for the first time.  Sort of.

In 1918 the Germans have won the war in the east and are transferring men into the west for some massive offensives using new tactics (that presaged the Blitzkrieg of the second world war)...and they work to an extent.  But here they meet the Americans, an army of a million dough-boys who fight with an utter disregard for casualties because they have not spent years in the trenches watching their friends die in a landscape that resembles the inner circle of hell.  Most important they (and their British and French allies, who still fight tenaciously in defense) inflict casualties on the Germans that they simply cannot replace, particularly with regards to their non-commissioned officers, and as 1918 wears on their war effort simply implodes.  They simply cannot match the sudden influx of Americans.  It wasn't particularly their fighting skills (though Keegan gives props to the Marines at Belleau Wood), but more so the fact that they were there, and there were a lot of them, and there were more coming, and everybody knew this.

Keegan also does an excellent job of explaining why the war turned out the way it did, with neither side really able to make a breakthrough.  It seems that technology had advanced to the point where the battlefield was hopelessly lethal but had not advanced far enough to coordinate those different lethal technologies.

Look - today, if you come under fire, chances are you know where you are and you have communications back to someone who also knows where you are.  That person can dial in artillery and air strikes to obliterate thine enemy into tiny bits.  I'm sure it's not that simple, but you get the idea.  Communications are incredibly advanced, and allow for leadership (in theory) to coordinate efforts in the battle space and deliver lethality where it is needed most.

Not so in WWI.  You may be fighting with the most advanced weaponry yet devised, but you are relying on telephones for comms with wires that often don't survive the initial bombardments that open any battle of the war.  Now you are relying on runners, which chances are will not make it to their destination.  Your infantry are in some place far away where you cannot see them, they have advanced but are now under counterattack.  They have no comms and cannot call in pinpoint artillery to engage the enemy.  They are alone, and they are at a disadvantage as the enemy gathers for the counter strike.

This a You Tube video that I think shows the problem very well.  It's a little long, but I think it's worth it. Leave it to the British to make a World War I documentary somewhat cheeky and fun.  I guessed they earned that right, at least.

Along the same lines, Keegan also argues that the generals were not quite as heartless and clueless as we thought.  Some of them did learn and adapt, if not overcome.  New techniques were tried to break the deadlock, and as the wore won the British in particular found that it was possible, through careful planning and a combination of mines, bombardment, tanks, and infantry supporting each other in assault, to make an initial attack with relatively (relatively being the key word) minor casualties, all things considered.  But such gains could never be consolidated, as the German counter attack (which was their tactic of choice for much of the war) would inevitably stall any offensive.  It's not a universal truth, and the late example of the waste at Passchendale sort of suggests otherwise, but its still true that commanders on both sides were able to make small improvements that did show some promise.  But the communication breakthrough that was really needed was never realized.

So - if you were wanting to come to grips with the conflict, I can think of no better way.  On the first reading, a decent book.  On the second reading, an excellent one.  Do yourself a favor and get a good book for maps or find some online...the military historian's penchant for Corps designations is alive and well.

  

On "Napoleon", by Andrew Roberts. Spolier Spoiler: Napoleon Still Loses the War

So I recently read Andrew Robert's recent book on Napoleon Bonaparte, aptly titled Napoleon.  Not Napoleon: A Life, or Napoleon: His Life and Times.  No.  Just Napoleon.

It was a very well written book, one that was almost a joy to read, easy to pick up off the nightstand.  It seems like its one of those books that everyone - or at least a lot of people -  should read; I was therefore surprised that no one stopped me as I lugged it around the Atlanta airport on the way to Denver a couple of weeks ago.  I thought that someone, perhaps a tall, tanned blonde with green eyes, would ease into the seat next to me on the plane and say "Oh, wow, is that Napoleon by Roberts?  What do you think of it?  Oh, I loved it.  Chardonay?  I always buy too much.  Where is your glass....there we are.  So, what's your favorite battle?  Mine is Marengo.  I just love the way the name rolls of the tongue. Marengo....Marengo....Marengo...."

Napoleon:  A man....

Or perhaps a portly British gentleman with horny rimmed glasses, smelling of tobacco and bacon.  He plops down in the seat next to me and says "Napoleon?  Do you like it?  I thought it was quite stimulating.  Fancy a Figgy Newton?  I always buy too many.  Damn things are just so good, and you can't buy these across the pond.  That and Chick-Fil-A sandwiches. MMMM God!  So good!"

But no.  Nope, nope nope.  I instead had to take to announcing to my exasperated colleagues at work where in life Napoleon happened to be as I read along.  Here, for instance, he is a young man, losing his virginity to a prostitute while he writes over wrought stories and novels full of just romantic fluff and horrific violence....if he was a student today he'd have probably been flagged as a threat and forced to undergo counseling and heavy meds.  He would have ended up studying chartered accountancy and living a comfortable life in the burbs....but every so often in the morning before the wife and kids woke up he'd break out the Risk board and play a lengthy game alone, trying to take over the world....

But no again.  Napoleon grew up in the late 1700s and while literature certainly wasn't his balliwick, soldiering was.  You could also say balliwick back then without getting looked at like an odd 'un, though I am pretty sure I remember Roberts using it once himself in his book.  Anyways, when Napoleon was first commissioned in the Artillery he spent most of his time away from his regiment and back home in Corsica, trying to steer her towards the revolutionary ideals of France.  But the Coriscan leadership did not agree, and he and his family were banished in 1793 to France. Napoleon threw his lot in with the Tricolor.

His rise to the rank of General, commanding the Army of Italy at the young age of 26 was due to a combination of luck and skill.  He always seemed to be in the right place at the right time, and he was skillful enough (and occasionally ruthless enough) to make the most of all opportunities.  He did so when he commanded the Army of Italy, when through the help of a series of training montages he took the Army from a bunch of ragtag ragamuffins and made it into the greatest fighting force in the world, beating the heavily favored Austrians in the Championship Game thanks in part to deployment of such tactical innovations as "The Flying V".  The fat kid also turned out to be a hell of a goalie.  Quack!  Quack!  Quack!  Quack!

The rest as the say, is history.

I learned a lot.  This book dispelled a lot of myths for me about Napoleon and framed him in a new light.  I always imagined him of something of a ruthless dictator who ruled Europe with an iron fist.  Not so.  Ruthless he could be, but he was no more ruthless than any of the regimes he fought against, and there were times when by comparison he was positively enlightened.  His ambition and arrogance, certainly, were his least admirable traits - and yet without them its hard to imaging him accomplishing half of what he did.

....and his (first) wife....

I also imagined that his marriage to Josephine was an unhappy one - not necessarily.  Josephine saw the
match as advantageous to her and he was bonked over the head by her beauty and, I think, her reputation (her claim to fame was that she performed "zig-zags" in bed, though what those were Roberts was unable to deduce). It was tumultuous - he always loved her desperately but she did not reciprocate at first.  They cheated on each other relentlessly.  But they grew in love and even after they divorced so Napoleon could sire an heir with Marie Louise of Austria (that worked out well, he said sarcastically) they remained friendly.

Equally interesting was Roberts' analysis of the Waterloo campaign.  Most books I have read on the subject seem to make it sound like a near run thing (to paraphrase Wellington himself).  Roberts though seems to believe that Waterloo, from the French perspective, was the worst lead battle of the Napoleonic wars.  Napoleon himself was lethargic, waiting too long to pursue the beaten Prussians after the Battle of Ligny, allowing them to escape to fight, crucially, another day.  Then, without having fixed the Prussians in place, he keeps his army divided, hoping that he can brush Wellington aside despite the fact that the Duke was fighting on ground of his own choosing and was excellent in defense (Napoleon, interestingly, was not, leading better in attack).  He starts the attack too late (on the advice of his artillery generals; it had rained hard the day before, and allowing the ground to dry some would allow the artillery to be better placed and render it more effective).  Even despite all this, there is perhaps a chance for France to win - but the attacks through the day lack support and when France maybe does have one last chance to seize the day by committing the Imperial Guard at a crucial moment Napoleon doesn't act fast enough.

....and his hat.

Roberts notes that when Waterloo is war gamed (even without Grouchy's corps) the French usually win - they attack earlier in the day and don't keep feeding troops into the fight for Hougemont.  Wellington is broken before the Prussians arrive, and Napoleon is the one living on to fight another day.

Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose.

In that way, though, The Battle is like a symphony.  Just as two orchestras have different interpretations of Beethoven's 6th, so it is that no two authors seem to represent it in quite the same way, and no two engineers who dabble in military history see the same reasons for the loss (really, I got into a brief but heated argument about it sitting in Repair 3 of CVN78).

And that, my friends, is the beauty of history.

That, and Josephine de Beauharnais's Zig Zags. Really, what could those be??   Maybe.....

Books You May Not Like (Especially if you are French or Prussian or Dutch or Pretty Much Anything But British) -- Waterloo, by Bernard Cromwell.

Have you ever wondered what life would be like if you had an English grandfather, a man who had spent the better part of his life pouring over English history in general and the Napoleonic Wars in particular,  and you asked him "Grandad, could you tell us about the battle of Waterloo"?

Well, you needn't wonder any longer.  All you have to do is read Bernard Cromwell's book Waterloo, published in 2014. I came upon it because, with the 200th anniversary of Waterloo coming tomorrow (June 18th), I figured it was high time I read a book about "The Battle".  The Economist said this one was good, so I downloaded it.

The Economist, it should be said, is British.  So are these hard ass bastards:

The 28th Regiment at Quatre Bras, Elizabeth Thompson

The Book gets pretty well ripped by some on Amazon because it is "biased" and "repetitive" and "doesn't offer any new knowledge about Wellington or Napoleon".  Those people are entitled to their opinions, and I actually think I agree with them.

But unlike them, I don't give a rip.  I thought this was a great book.

If you've never read much military history before, this book will be great.  A lot of military history can become mired down in units and numbers and blocks moving across the battlefield, which can make it confusing and distant to the uninitiated.  Cromwell tries to avoid doing a lot of that, only referencing unit numbers when necessary, and keeping things at the general level (the corps, the wing).  You'll learn a lot about the battle.

If you have read a lot of military history before, this book will also be great.  Sure, the facts of Waterloo are the facts.  You can read them all on Wikipedia and know how the battle went.  But I thought Cromwell's writing really brought the battle to life.  The book almost read like a novel (which, as Cromwell did write the Sharpe series and a number of other novels, you would kind of expect).  He wraps some things in hyperbole (I think he says, as the Imperial Guard begins their charge, that the entire world was watching) but it actually doesn't sound misplaced.  You get a sense of how desperate the battle was, particularly the defense of Hougamont.  You can get a feel for what it was like to see the Guard's bear skin hats peeking over the ridge as they advance, the drums beating a relentless pas-de-charge.  Few things I have found paint Napoleonic-era combat quite so vividly.

Is it biased?  I'm not so sure.  Cromwell never, ever discounts the Prussian contributions to the battle (Wellington would have been beaten if the Prussians had not arrived or had arrived much later , I think most people would say that with certainty), but I do wish he had spent a few more words on the fighting in Plancenoit which was just as harsh as anywhere else on the field.  If Cromwell is hard on Napoleon and the other French generals for their leadership, and rather in praise of Wellington and his presence on the field, it is because such distinctions are probably deserved and the contrasts were real.  Napoleon led from a distance, watching the battle next to La Belle Alliance.  Wellington left little to chance and road all over the field, exposing himself to the dangers, inspiring order in his men.  I think it may be possible that Cromwell has Wellington in two places at once, but perhaps that is a testament to how much the Duke actually did during the battle.

Best of all?  There are maps!  Every chapter has a map showing the situation that will be covered therein.  They are even easy to see on your Kindle Fire.  A number of military histories I have read recently have eschewed maps for some ungodly reason;  this one has them aplenty and I was ever so glad.

In short, I couldn't be happier.  A great read.  If you hurry, you may be able to read it by the 200th anniversary of the battle's end, about 2000 tomorrow.

Oh crap, wait.....that's 2000 tomorrow Brussels time, which is....2:00 in the afternoon Eastern time.

You better get going.

So, Who Wants to Hear a Nice Story About a Bridge?

This week I finished David McCullough's book The Great Bridge, which is about the design and construction of the Brooklyn Bridge and was one of McCullough's earlier books, written back in the 1970's.  My uncle gave it to me for Christmas some time ago and I finally sat down to read it.  

And it was good, as most things by McCullough are.  The book examined the construction of the bridge but also the stories of the people behind and around it (Washington Roebling, Emily Roebling, Tweed, Kingsley, and a host of others).  Most interesting to me was the construction and sinking of the towers in the East River.  Compressed air was forced into a cavity at the bottom of a caisson that formed the base of the towers.  That kept water out so that men could excavate under the towers - as the caisson sank deeper the towers were built on top of it.  

Of course, one of the problems with compressed air is that it can give you the bends, which is something that scuba divers are familiar with but in actuality it was discovered during work on caissons such as the ones used to build the bridge (the official name of the disease is actually Caisson's disease).  It was a reliatvely new phenomenon but people had drawn the correlation at least between the pressurized air and the devastating disease.  Still, men went into the bridge to work.  Washington Roebling himself got the bends while oversseing work in the Caissons and he dealt with the after-effects for the rest of his life.  

McCullough does a pretty good job of describing how the bridge was built without going into overlycumbersome detail.

And....that's really about it.  It was a fascinating read, and I'm in awe of what they were able to do in the past.  The nineteenth century was an engineer's dream....

Happy Graduation, Graduates!

This past weekend I attended my Brother-in-law's high school graduation.  It's incredible to think that when I first met him he was a tiny little eight year old guy who still watched Power Rangers.  Now he's 18 and he towers over me like a giant, and he knows more about cars than I ever will.

How much of the ceremony he'll remember 14 years on I can't say.  I know that I can't remember much of mine.  I'm pretty sure that Frank Beamer was our commencement speaker.  I vaugely recall that he gave a decent speech with all the normal platitudes, though what exactly he said I can't remember.  I think that I can remember who our valedictorian was.  She had done a science fair project on genetics that had cancer research implications; my entry concerned which brand of store bought cookie could hold the most milk after being immersed for 4 seconds.  I didn't win the science fair.

I remember also not particularly enjoying myself.  Why that was a I couldn't say.  Perhaps it's because I knew that my friends, some of whom I'd grown quite close to, were about to be scattered to the four winds. Maybe it was the first signs of depression that would manifest itself fully in college and never really go away. Maybe my shoes were too tight.  I just don't know.  

The graduation I saw this past weekend was fairly typical.  A band played an endless rendition of "Pomp and Circumstance" as the graduates walked in.  A note to anyone thinking about cutting funding for the arts in public schools:  think again.  Sitting through 15 verses of "P&C" is bad enough, but if it's played poorly that is a horse of a different color (brown, I think). The commencement speaker was from the business world, and he told the assembly that staying connected, being kind to others, and working hard would lead them on the path towards a life of consequence. The kids got their diplomas.  Hats were tossed in the air.  There was much rejoicing.

The valedictorian's address was interesting, though not in a good way.  The speech was essentially a 12 minute metaphor in which the graduates were compared to champagne bubbles heading towards the top of a flute glass.  Among 31,000 other children graduating in Virginia alone, who are also bubbles in this very large glass of champagne, how could the people in this class of 126 rise to the top?  She answered the question and neatly showed us how clever she was by quoting something by Ayn Rand which in a mere two days I've already forgotten.

I found it to be annoying and condescending.  "Heck" I thought to myself I did, "she probably delights in pointing out, over and over again, that the final battle in 'The Patriot' is actually a mash-up of Cowpens and Guillford's Courthouse, and that Colonel Tavington is actually based on the real-life Colonel Tarleton, who survived the war and returned to England to rise to the rank of General and nearly commanded British troops in the Peninsular War.  Tarleton's dragoons wore green jackets, not red, and..."

And I realized I do the same thing, all the time.  This girl and I are the same.  She was a more annoying, more attractive, and much younger version of myself.

Lieutenant-Colonel Banastre Tarleton, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1781.  His compatriots would always note that Tarleton was "Not a particularly kind fellow" which loosely translates today into "He was a total dick."  That's one thing, at least, that the movie got right.  Nice hat.

It made me wonder what I would say if I was a valedictorian, especially with the benefit of 14 years additional experience.  I'd probably be tempted to speak to them of the challenges that lie ahead, but I hope the better angels of my nature would prevail and I would trot out the good old platitudes about how the world is theirs if they are willing to work for it.  Graduation, after all, is supposed to be a happy occasion, not a time to bicker and argue about who killed who.  It is my hope that my brother in law, and all others graduating as the school years draw to a close, remembers it always as something happy and joyous.

Congratulations, Graduates!  The world is yours!  Soon you be able to eat cookies for breakfast and no one will be able to stop you.  Because you are adults, you have arrived, you are kings of the castle and masters of your own destiny!  Go on, just take a big honking block of cheese and just bite into like an apple. You know you've always wanted to see what that was like.  Well, now is the time.  You've earned it!  

"He better be worth it. He better go home and cure a disease, or invent a longer-lasting light bulb, or a T-shirt cannon or something."

Harbor Park, home of the Norfolk Tides baseball team, sits like a concrete and steel jewel nestled among small time shipyards along the Elizabeth River waterfront.  I've been there twice this past week to watch the Tides play in two rather desultory ballgames.  They aren't having a good season (even the Lake Woebegon Whippets gave them a run for their money) and the games were sparsely attended.  I feel that maybe if the Tides reduced their ticket and beer prices by 20% they may put more butts in the seats regardless of the team's performance, but what do I know?  I'm just a naval architect.

Even if the games haven't been so good it did give me a chance to get in touch with all things that make America great.  Things like circular meats of all kinds sizzling on an open flame.  Zany sound effects.  T-shirt cannons.

Then there is our national anthem, which was sung at both games with great feeling.  Whenever I hear it, I always think about how it is probably the only anthem ever written to the tune of a British drinking song.  No guarantees on that, the British have been everywhere and they do love to drink and to sing, but I simply know of no other off the top of my head.  I'm also not willing to do the research to know for sure.

I am, however, quite sure it is the only national anthem that ends with a question.

We never sing it that way, of course.  The anthem is hard enough to sing as it is; trying to end it with an upward inflection as if to ask a question would make it simply impossible.  But the official lyrics of the anthem do have those last two lines of the the first verse (the only one we typically sing) reading

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?   

I think it is an apt question to ask ourselves, especially as the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings are coming up on Friday.  Discussing the landings with my family in the past, we have sometimes wondered if our nation would be capable of duplicating such a feat, surely one of our nation's finest hours.  

The past 13 years of war have proven that there are scores upon scores of brave men and women who have all the courage and tenacity to fight for our nation, even to the last, and would storm the beaches of Normandy again if that is what was required to guarantee our freedoms.

But what of the rest of us? Could the rest of the nation do it again?  Would we roll up our sleeves and work in the shipyards, the factories, the arsenals?  Would we donate our stockings and start victory gardens? Or would we just subcontract it out to the lowest bidder so that we could go on surfing the internet for cat videos and spend our time arguing about what exactly defines a snack?.  

I don't know if America is a particularly reflective nation, it doesn't seem to be a part of our make-up, which is why remembering anniversaries such as the D-day landings are important. Take a moment to reflect on their sacrifices and those of the men and women who have born the brunt of our wars today.  How best can we honor them?  What do we owe them? Are we worth it?

The answer I'll leave up to you.

Gettysburg

There's been a lot in the news recently - and actually for once a lot of it is worthwhile.  The death of Arizona firefighters, the reverberations from a historical Supreme Court Session, yet another round of protests in Egypt. It's little surprise that, at least from where I am sitting down here in God's Country, the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg has been something of an afterthought.

Of course the fact that I live in Virginia may explain some of that...

I had the very good fortune to spend two days on the battlefield with my dad about 12 years ago.  Civil War scholarship is a hobby of my father's, though I am not 100% sure why.  He spends the second half of each year reading about the Civil War or people associated with it -- though there are those years where the book he chooses is so detailed and he is otherwise so busy that he can only make it through one text in 6 months, if that -- and when we went to the field Gettysburg had been the focus of his studies for several years.  He knew the order of battle down to the regiment virtually everywhere, and in a few places even down to the company.  No need for a tour guide that time.

It was a memorable trip, but the highlight for me, the thing I will never forget as long as I live, was walking Pickett's Charge.  For those of you deciding not to click on the link, Pickett's Charge was the assault by Confederate troops on the Union center on the third and final day of the battle.  Lee, after assaulting the flanks of the Union line on the previous day, decided that he must attack the center based on the principle that do the same thing over and over again and expect different results is a sign of insanity, so obviously something else had to be tried.  The Union center was the only option left.    

No, that isn't strictly true.  Though his intentions, target, and the wisdom of the charge are all hotly debated, it seems his goal was to break the Union center and pour troops into the breach and roll up the Union lines while using a cavalry assault from the rear to exploit the gap.  A massive artillery bombardment would pave the way by destroying Union artillery and demoralizing enemy infantry at the focal point.  As it was the bombardment was ineffectual, and while some Confederate troops did break the Union line there was not enough of them and they were easily repulsed with a counterattack by Union reserves.  

Why my dad and I were so keen to walk it I am not so sure.  In this hyper-political day and age, where an act as simple as buying a chicken sandwich can taint a person with the stain of intolerance, it seems like only those with some affinity for the South and her cause would dare walk the charge at all.  But that was certainly not the case with us.  I'll admit we had some admiration for some of the South's generals and soldiers as fighting men, but we had no illusions of the odious institution of slavery that lay at the heart of the Confederate cause (see postscript for more on this) and we had (and have) no wish to see the south rise again as some people, inexplicably, still do.  We walked the charge because it seemed like something worth doing, and it certainly was.

We started out at a monument to James Longstreet (who ironically was not in favor of the charge) and headed towards the copse of trees, the oft quoted but still debatable visual target for the charge. We walked toward the Union lines at a small distance apart from each other, not speaking, each lost in our own thoughts.  We were nearly to the angle in the stonewall under the copse when it happened.  

I looked over to my left, and I swear to this day I saw a host of Confederate soldiers clothed in their tattered butternut uniforms with their battle flags flying, the men shouting to keep their spirits up.  When I looked forward towards the slight ridge and low wall that defined the Union line I saw a pair of men with slouched caps and the muzzle of a cannon.  There was a flash from the cannon and I felt -- and heard -- the thud of a ball of canister shot hitting me in the chest.  

I was dead.  

And then it all disappeared.  I was back in an empty field, my father now somewhat ahead of me, on a rainy summer day in Gettysburg.  

I can hear you all reaching for the bullshit flags right now.  There are those who would say that in some past life I probably died at Gettysburg fighting for the South, but in spite of that experience I don't believe in re-incarnation.  The more astute of you would probably also tell me that the Union artillery were behind the line of infantry in position at the stone wall, so I couldn't have possibly seen a cannon -- my vision or whatever you want to call it was historically inaccurate.  Others would remind me of the biscuits and gravy I'd had that morning for breakfast, northern biscuits and gravy that were not sitting well in my southern stomach, and quip that there was more gravy than grave about the visions I saw.

Just so.  Still, rational though I am (often to a fault), I reserve the right to believe in things supernatural, things that simply cannot be explained.  

I believe that is quite possible that in places like Gettysburg, full of so much death and violence and ideal and elan, some kind of imprint gets left behind that can manifest itself later.  It's like that feeling you get at night when you don't feel quite alone, that some specter from the past is hanging around in the living room, meaning no harm, maybe not even cognizant of itself, but just passing through like a chilly mist on a way point to somewhere else, an etching from a previous life.

It makes sense to me, then, that the visions I saw were an etching, a remnant, of the men who died in the throes of our nation's great and tragic crisis.  It is my hope in relating this story to you (aside from it being a pretty neat story) that you might pause to remember those who died in that struggle, and mull over the words that one of the greatest of men would forever immortalize in their honor:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.


But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

~Abraham Lincoln                                                                

PS: Let the Gettysburg Address sink in for a bit.  I am about to ruin the moment.  Go get a glass of water or something.

You back?  Excellent.  Let's crack on.

So, when I was in the Boy Scouts and we could stop thinking or talking about girls long enough to focus on something else we used to actually discuss if slavery was THE cause of the Civil War or not, if it was rather a battle over states rights.  As I grew up in Southwest Virginia there were plenty of us (myself not among them) who argued that slavery was not the cause of the war, and one of the crutches holding up this precarious argument was the rumor that the great James I. Robertson Jr., Civil War historian and a professor at Virginia Tech, had said so.

The man, and the class he taught, are justly legendary.  I was told that the course had a waiting list years long, and he would flat out tell you that slavery did not cause "The War Between the States" or "The War of Northern Aggression" or (my favorite) "The War to Prevent Southern Independence".

You can imagine my horrible, self-satisfied, smugfuckingly smug smile when one of the first sentences to be drawled by Professor Robertson in his peculiar Danville accent when I did take his class (no waiting list, by the by) was "Make no doubt about it:  Slavery was the cause of this war."  Clearly, he realized his reputation proceeded him.  

Though I will say one thing about prof. Robertson to his detriment:  he was the historical consultant for the movie "Gods and Generals", and he was extremely proud of this, told us many times that it was a fine film.  

Well, I saw that movie in the theaters, and in my opinion it was horrible.  It was some 4 hours long, and during the intermission everyone in the crowd, all eight of us, asked one another if we should struggle through the rest or if we should just call it a night and try to impress the coffee girls at the local hippie bakery by showing them how we had mastered a whole slew of asymmetric chess openings.  We all decided to hang with the movie based on principle, and I believe all of us regret it still.   

So Bruno Mars wrote "When I was Your Man" to help put his cat to sleep?

So today's history pop quiz is this:

Describe the life and musical contributions of George Friedrich Handel.  No notes.  No books.  No Wikipedia (though you are welcome to hop on to Wikipedia and see how close I was, and how much this is actually truthful).  

GO!

So George Friedrich Handel was born in Halle, a city in what would one day be Germany, around the same time as J.S. Bach.  Somehow or another he becomes a court musician for King George I of England, and that really is where our story begins.  

Now George I was brought over to be the King of England by the Parliament after the death of Queen Anne.  He's from Hanover:  he can't speak English very well, he thinks Guiness tastes like motor oil, and while he finds the larger noses of the English females simply charming he is utterly horrified at the state of English dentistry (one finds that this is a common theme throughout history).

So he's a nervous wreck.  As he gets rowed up and down the Thames on his barge from the palace to parliament and from parliament to various social engagements he finds himself obsessing over English grammer, and trying to figure out how he can get his damned subjects to put their verbs at the end of sentences as God intended.  He's losing weight.  He won't touch his beer nor his beer wench.  He can't figure out which corner of his tri-corner hat is the front one.  

In desperation, he hits upon an idea.  What if he had a group of musicians on the barge who could play music  to him so that he could forget about his cares for a while?  Relax him?  

So he calls in his head court musician, Handel, a fellow German.  And Handel writes this little ditty for him:

King George I loves it so much that he has them play it again, and again, and again, repeating the first movement incessently, the orchestra acting like the 18th century version of a CD player with the repeat button on....

And so, because the King loved to listen to the music so much while rowing around on his barge, the music became known as "Handel's Water Music Suite".

This is not the only classic work that has such an innocuous beginning.  Bach's Goldberg Variations were written for a student of his (Goldberg), who was a royal musician for a certain Prince Humperdink.  Prince Humperdink's large gambling debts and rampant syphillus tended to keep him up at night, and the only way he could fall asleep was if Goldberg played some soothing piano music in a room adjacent to his.  

But Goldberg was fast running out of material.  He hurriedly scribbled a note to his former tutor J.S. Bach and shot it out the window with a bow and arrow:

Dear Mr. Bach:

Heilige Scheiße!  I can't write music fast enough to keep this guy happy.  I had to play 100 variations on "Home on the Range" last night and I am seriously running out of fucking ideas here.  Please help me!!

                                                                                              Your Friend,

                                                                                              Goldberg

So Bach sits down and he writes a classic set of variations on a very simple theme:

It's amazing to me to think that here we have two classic pieces of music that have endured for nearly 300 years, written to entertain one royal and to put another to sleep.  I don't know how much thought Handel and Bach put into their pieces, I don't know if they were trying to write something that would endure or if they were just putting in another day at the office.  I can't help but wonder at the fact that these two men of genius were able to construct things so beautiful seemingly on a whim.

I also can't help but wonder what, if anything, from our own culture will endure, and what the stories behind their origins will be.  The closest I can think of is how Don Draper drafted his ad campaign for lucky strikes on the back of a napkin at a cocktail bar before boffing some beatnik bimbo, or how Wayne's World 2 was written in 90 minutes.  Will we be talking about Lucky Strikes in 2313? Will we remember Niki Minaj?  Will we tune into NPR to hear Ke$ha?  Will people put on their finest suit of space clothes and, after a nice space dinner with a glass of space wine, file into the space ampitheater to watch the Lunar Surface Philharmonic play the complete "Locked in the Closet" suite?

I don't know about any of that.  But I'll bet we'll be watching Wayne's World 2 every Easter on our space-o-visions.  It's a classic.  

Party on.

Books you may not like: Vincent Van Gogh, The Life

If I sit and really think about it, public schools, of all things, really helped foster an interest in art.  I remember basically three pivotal moments in my schooling that really cemented a love of art.  My entire time spent with art in school couldn't have taken more than 117 hours of schooling out of the staggering 15840 I spent in grade school and college, and yet those 117 hours (a mere 0.74%!) have paid incredible dividends, adding a richness to life that goes well beyond the scant amount of time spent.  Opponents of teaching art in public schools, take note!

Anyway, here they are:

1. I remember being exposed to art for the first time, really, in the third grade, when every other week we were marched off to the art room for an hour.  And one of the paintings I remember seeing was Van Gogh's "The Bedroom in Arles" I don't what it was about it - maybe it was the colors, or the kind of skewed perspective, or the fact that we learned Van Gogh was so crazy that he cut off his ear and gave it to his girlfriend (which, to the mind of a third grader, was kind of cool, but why go through so much trouble just for some dumb girl with cooties), but I liked it, and I tucked it into the filing cabinet for later.  
2. I've mentioned in this blog many times my European History teacher's delegation of teaching art history to "Sister Wendy's History of Painting".  While I have often joked about this, I have to commend him for giving the task to more capable hands.  
3. At Virginia Tech, all science and engineering majors have to take a class called "Creativity and Aesthetic Experience", where basically the head of the theatre department learns us about theatre, art, and music, and we have to go and see some shows and concerts.  It was kind of silly, but it was welcome break from never ending math and it was here that I learned about texture and contrast in painting for the first time, only deepening my appreciation.  

There you go.  A smattering of arts education goes a mighty long way.  

Anyway, as my appreciation grew, I became more and more drawn to Van Gogh's work, and I have to count his landscapes, and even some of his still lifes, as some of my favorite pieces of art.  If I happen to come across one in a museum I can stand and look at it, transfixed, for fully...well, five minutes.  But in this day and age of tweets and instantaneous everything, five minutes sitting contemplating a painting is like an eternity.  You know, kind of like how one dog year = seven people years.  

I even came a little bit to idolize the man himself. My knowledge had deepened a little more - I knew that the had given his ear to a prostitute, not merely his girlfriend, and that he was totally reliant on his brother for money.  Still, I admired the way he seemed to give himself wholly to his art.  But that was about all.  I wanted to know a little more.

So it was natural then that I would pick up a copy of the latest Van Gogh biography, Van Gogh: The Life .  It reads wonderfully well, justifying the claim by many reviews that it practically reads like a novel.  The authors did an incredible job of breathing life in Van Gogh's life and times.  The book is also well illustrated though most of the illustrations are black and white.  Van Gogh painted so many works I found that sometimes I had to go to the Google or to another book I have on Van Gogh to see a particular work being discussed in the book.  

Well written as the book is, its a tough read because it is basically an 800 page study in human misery.  Van Gogh was an odd kid with a strange personality that his parents (a pastor in the Dutch Lutheran church and his very status oriented wife) did not take too well.  He was sent to a series of boarding schools in which he failed, and then the family used its connections to get him a job at Goupil art dealers, at which he failed several times.  He then tried to be a missionary but failed as that at well, and when studying to take entrance exams so that he could go to seminary and be a pastor like his father?  Guess what:  failed those too.  

Vincent's repeated professional failings, coupled with his odd behavior (drunkenness, cavorting with prostitutes, hanging out with the peasants) brought scandal on the family and finally he was basically ostracized.   

And that seems to be the source of Vincent's misery.  For some reason he just was unable to connect with people, he was unable to find a family, and he would try again and again to graft himself into someone's life.  But, as Sien Hoornik, Paul Gauguin, and host of others found out, he did it with such incredibly intensity that it was simply impossible to live with him for more than a few months.  By the end of his life, even the two penny whores of Arles would politely refuse the strange man's company.

What's doubly sad that is tragedy seemed to touch all of those he came into contact with.  One of Vincent's brothers was killed in the diamond mines of Africa; one of his sister's ended up in an insane asylum; one of the only women that seriously loved him nearly killed himself after both her and Van Gogh's family got in the way of the match; Sien Hoornik drowned herself at the age of 45.  

And then there's Theo Van Gogh, Vincent's younger brother, who was a success at Goupil and struggled all his life to support Vincent by sending him money, paints, canvases, and trying to sell his works through his art world connections.  Theo was the closest friend Vincent ever had, and yet their relationship was under constant strain from Vincent's never ending demands for money.  Theo and Vincent cavorted together in the whorehouses of the Parisian underworld and both of them contracted syphilis.  The disease drove Theo horrifically insane and he ended his life in a straight jacket and a padded room.  Were it not for Theo's marriage to Joanna Bonger, who did much to give Vincent the recognition in death that he had never had in life, Vincent's art work may have died with Theo.

The question I found myself asking as I read the book is:  was it all worth it?  Was the work left behind worth the price?  Is my five minutes of enjoyment worth a lifetime of unhappy toil?  I don't know.  But it's a dangerous question to pose, because it suggests that nothing is worth ceaseless Sisyphean task of living a life that all of us are engaged in, even if it is something that a good number of us engage in with more happiness and success than Vincent Van Gogh.  Then again, perhaps Van Gogh's work points to an answer.  Maybe it is our mission, our vocation, to pull something beautiful out of the jaws of life, steeped in suffering though it may be.