Christmas with Marty Supreme

Afternoon matinees are almost as much of a Christmas tradition as sleigh-rides. Maybe more. On the day after Christmas, we decided to get out of the house before the bad weather arrived and see a film. There’d been a lot of hoopla surrounding the Christmas Day release of the latest Timothy Chalamet film, Marty Surpreme, but we didn’t know anything about that. We’d seen the previews. The movie looked good.

And it was good. It has lots of razzle-dazzle, a relentless pace, an array of memorable minor characters, and a seemingly endless stream of plot twists. Enormous effort has been given to recreating the look and feel of New York City circa 1950. And Chalamet “nails” the central figure, a young shoe salesman (and ping-pong hustler), who thinks he can become world champion, if only he can drum up the funds to fly to London for the tournament.

The soundtrack is also good—and loud—though I wasn’t familiar with any of the songs.  Hits like "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" and “I Have the Touch” were prominently featured; I’d never heard of them. Perry Como and Fats Domino are also on the playlist. (Those two I’m familiar with.)

There are patches of violence in the film, and Marty himself steps on a lot of toes in his pursuit of personal glory. Well, so does Cary Grant in His Girl Friday. Come to think of it, what about Orson Welles in Citizen Kane? And how about the Jack Nicholson characters in a range of films from Five Easy Pieces to Chinatown and The Last Detail?

Marty has a good deal of youthful charm, and he seems to have a lot of friends at the local ping-pong parlor. In short, he isn’t a total jerk. Perhaps we can give him an added measure of sympathy second-hand by way of his sometime girlfriend, Rachel, played with anguished depth by Odessa Azion.

Ping-pong isn’t much of a spectator sport these days, but it was big in the early 1950s, and the tournament scenes are fun to watch. They’re given added political dimension due to the fact that the player Marty most wants to beat is Japanese. Marty also cracks a few Holocaust jokes along the way that are in very bad taste, but defends himself by arguing, “Hey. I’m Jewish. I’m Hitler’s worst enemy. And I’m going to be world champion.” 

But the political touches are minor, and the film has none of the “camp” flavor we find in works by the Coen Brothers. No, Marty Supreme is a vivid throwback to the days when a rollicking good romance/adventure story was all that an audience required.  

Homage to Mercury

There’s moisture in the air again. I'm sure you've noticed. It's raining. It’s still dark at 6:45, but on a clear day, Jupiter is bright and high in the western sky, and the sun is brilliant on the ungainly heaps of snow. On a clear day, it also streams in above the piano on a lower plane than at any other time of the year, shoots across the room, and comes to rest on the light switch in the hall. 

Mercury is the god of quick changes, I think. They say you can see it just before sunrise in the southeast these days. I haven't made the effort, but I can see its influence everywhere.

It all began with a dreadful cold snap. During that bitter spell, we sat in the den by the warmth of the Jøtul stove, though we might just as well have been up on the North Shore. As usual in such situations, I had a stack of books by my side on the couch, including Petrarch’s Bucolicum Carmen, a biography of Erik Satie, a slim book about aesthetics by Bence Nanay (part of Oxford’s Very Short Introduction series), and a collection of essays by John MacQuarrie called Studies in Christian Existentialism.

Also near at hand was my journal, into which I occasionally jotted a few notes. For example:

“Nanay rejects both beauty and pleasure as foundations or standards for aesthetic judgment. In fact, he rejects judgment itself, preferring the term “analysis.” He quotes Susan Sontag, who characterizes aesthetic experiences as ‘detached, restful, contemplative, emotionally free, beyond indignation or approval.’ Evidently Sontag didn’t go to the movies much.”

The weather turned that night, and the next morning we went on a spectacular ski, following Tornado Alley south in bright sun through the woods, under Highway 55, across Bassett Creek, and around a loop through the white pines just north of Glenwood Avenue. We've walked these grounds many times, but had never skied them before. The freshness in the air was genuinely intoxicating. 

In order to make the most of it, I shoveled two feet of snow off the deck and oiled the track on the garage door, which was squeaking something terrible. (Alas! It still is.) Then I split a few pieces of the firewood stacked in the garage  into narrow strips for kindling, which will come in handy sooner or later. It won’t stay this warm for long.

The next morning the air was just the same, but the snow had crystalized during the thaw, and we left the skis at home during our morning ramble down alongside the creek.

Last night the rain arrived, slightly weird, but still atmospheric. 

This morning I was cleaning up some emails from Earth/Sky News and was cheered to learn that the universe, like me, is slowing down. The theory had been that it was not only expanding, but accelerating. New research offers a more reasonable view. In findings published November 6 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, a team of astronomers argued that “the universe is in a phase of decelerated expansion.” 

Here's the gist: Early arguments for accelerated expansion were based on measurements of distance to faraway galaxies using Type 1a supernovas. These supernovas were regarded as the universe’s “standard candles,” but new research suggests that their brightness is related not only to distance, but also to the age of the stars that created them. Once you factor that information in, the data suggests that the universe expands and contracts like an accordion, rather than expanding and thinning out with relentless and ever-increasing speed.

I like that idea, and Empedocles would have liked it, too, I think.  

Advent Meditations

The Pope in Nicaea.

The new Pope. A wonderful man by all accounts, and better yet, he’s from Chicago!

A few weeks ago he paid a visit to Nicaea, in Turkey, in honor of the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. Bishops from many nations gathered there in 325—hundreds if not thousands of them—to deliberate a wide variety of issues. (Who paid for the lodging, the food, the enormous travel expenses? The Roman state.) 

At the top of the agenda was the question of whether Jesus existed before his birth in the manger in Bethlehem. The Arians said NO. At the council this position was ruled a heresy. It was deemed imperative to underscore the position (we can hardly call it a “fact”) that Jesus was of “one substance with the father” since the beginning of time, and perhaps well before.

To most people who were raised in Christian traditions the issue isn’t that important. For many, the most enduring result of the council was the introduction of a new prayer—the Nicaean Creed— alongside the somewhat shorter Apostle’s Creed. Most people find the Apostle’s Creed easy to remember. The Nicaean Creed? Not so much.  

At any rate, I never got the hang of it. Yet the rhetoric did sink in, to the extent that I began to wonder what a “substance” actually was, from the metaphysical point of view. I’m still wondering.

It’s a good question. But at Christmas time another question perhaps looms larger: Was Jesus ever really a baby? Would he be “of one substance” with the Father during that rudimentary phase in his earthly ontogeny?

It might seem like a frivolous question, if not a blasphemous one, but it cuts to the heart of the Christmas event. Aside from the lights, the music, the gatherings and the food, it seems to me that people are often moved by what I might call the rural simplicity and innocence of the event.

Let me suggest that Christmas is the most evocative time of the liturgical year, in part, because it's the least didactic. The gold, frankincense, and myrrh are dazzling and exotic; we don’t really care what they symbolize. The Star in the East could be any star, if it’s bright enough to attract our attention. (Stars are cool and mysterious, especially in the deep winter night.) We can forget, for the time being, the sometimes dour, gnomic, and prescriptive episodes in Jesus’s adulthood, and enjoy the aroma of balsam, the sweet buttery taste of a spritz, or the slightly edgy bite of a home-made pepper kaka, hot out of the oven. And also, perhaps, a vaguely delirious sense of cheer and hope.  

Family memories resurface. Some of them are “magical,” while others may remind us, painfully, of how naïve and self-centered we used to be—and probably still are. 

But there is no need to dwell on such things during these celebratory days of darkness and light. Better simply to relish the color, warmth, and togetherness that are pleasantly adrift on a mysterious something. Is it time? Or substance?

Holiday Sale

On a Saturday in early December bright with new snow, what better thing to do than get together with friends, acquaintances, and a few utter strangers (friends of friends) at a low-key arts and shopping event? Hilary has been putting such gatherings together with a few friends for several years, and we hosted another one a few days ago featuring Hilary’s pottery, a friend’s dazzling runners, placemats, and other weavings, and even a few of my old books—plus a few newly printed miniature paperbacks on display as “stocking stuffers.”

Everything was priced to sell, and besides, any gift takes on added luster when it’s accompanied by the remark: “A friend of mine made this.” Not to mention the fact that the artworks themselves were first-rate. But matters of commerce aside, it’s fun to participate in an event where people come and go at odd intervals, bring a few friends, run into people they haven’t seen in a while or have perhaps heard about but have never met. They might eat a cookie or drink a cup of cider, watch the nuthatches and woodpeckers at the feeder out on the deck, or strike up a conversation at random as they examine the wares.

We sent out a few email invitations and so did our weaver-friend, Dave Taylor. We also invited a few young friends who live on our street. Three generations of Dave’s family showed up, two of Hilary’s brothers, a cousin or two, and numerous friends stretching back more than half a century.   

In the course of the day I found myself discussing the bison kill site at Itasca State Park, the Danish String Quartet, the comparative civic health of Chaska and Chanhassen, grizzly bear attacks at Glacier National Park, the novels of Thomas Bernhard, cross-country skiing at Wirth Park, the films of Mel Brooks (I somehow forgot to mention Young Frankenstein!), the merits of E-bikes, and sundry other things that escape me now. One friend was recovering from cataract surgery, another from knee surgery, 

Once the guests had gone home, as we sat around trying the sort the proceeds, Dave told me that he’d spoken at length with six people who owned looms, including one friend of ours who used to design them! (I’d forgotten that.) He’d sold nearly all of his pieces and gotten two commissions. It had been a good day. "Now I can buy more yarn."

Hilary has also “done well.” But I’m pretty sure they would both agree that the most precious result was the memory of friends and acquaintances chattering musically, getting to know one another on a bright December afternoon.