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| Nick and Nora Charles with Asta |
Positivity. That’s my watchword for 2021. (I here note that I believe this to be my first ever use of the word “watchword.”) A positive approach, a positive attitude and negative test results -- unless where a positive one is preferable.
It is a new year and boy did we need one. The one just past was a stinker. High hopes and all for the coming twelve months as the bar has been set pretty low. Baring a last-minute coup, we’ll have a new president on the twentieth day of the year and while he is far from perfect, the squirrel currently nibbling in our garden would be an improvement to the man soon departing. The burden of having an imbecile for a president these past four years has been weighty on all of us. Relief at last.
It’s been nine months — and counting — living in a pandemic and the novelty wore off about eight and half months ago. To recount the negatives of pandemic life would be repetitious. But in short the absences of: restaurants, hugs, gyms, stadiums, visiting, teaching, normality.
in 20121 news... My wife and I are thinking about starting a detective agency. Our main goal would be to solve mysteries. To this end I will buy a trench coat. I thought it would also be a good idea to hire a sexy young female secretary but my wife isn’t so sure. She does agree that we should put up a shingle. Another idea I have is that I could record our adventures — perhaps on this blog — in much the same way Watson chronicled his cases with Sherlock Holmes. Oh yes, we’d have a motto: “If we can’t solve it, it didn’t happen.” I’m sure we’ll get caught up in a lot of international intrigue and end up in exotic locales. It seems a prerequisite for our work will be developing contacts on all police forces and finding confidential informants (CIs) in the seamy underworld. If anyone would like to be an informant or has a case they’d like solved, please let me know in the comments section. Our fees will be reasonable and we guarantee that your case will be solved or no money back. This great idea was inspired by our recent viewings of several Thin Man movies starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles. We'd kind of be like them only without all the drinking. (We'll have to find a dog like Asta.)
I was thinking recently (yes, it is a practice I occasionally engage in) about the devil, aka Satan, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, The Prince of Darkness, Mitch McConnell. A lot of people all over the world believe that there is a loving god and a polar opposite to him in the form of a devil. Some contend that they are constantly at war with one another for, among other things, the souls of individuals. I have a theory: Satan won. A long time ago. I present as evidence the following (and believe me this is but a partial list): infectious diseases, the Holocaust, wars, torture, murder, corporate greed, racism, sexism, homophobia, sexual violence, the Republican Party, fascism, police brutality, extra judicial killings, militarism, nationalism, gang violence, classism and people who talk during movies. All of these have been part of society within the last 100 years — not to mention the past couple of millennia. You’re telling me a loving god is overseeing all of this? Please. If a god and a prince of darkness had it out at around the dawn of humankind it’s pretty clear who won.
Let me add to that this that I learned something of Christian dogma from being raised in the Lutheran church (spilt when I was fourteen) and from a very brief time in which I flirted with an evangelical church (I was drinking and using at the time). One thing that was emphasized during the latter experience was that Jesus loves you BUT, if you don’t accept him as your lord and savior, you’ll burn in hell for all eternity where there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Again, this is a loving god. I’d hate to think what a vengeful god would do to those who deigned not to worship him. But everything you need to know about evangelicals can be summed up by the fact that they supported Donald Trump in large numbers. A bigger batch of hypocrites you’d be hard-pressed to find.
On a positive note….(There was a pause as the blogger struggled to find something — anything — positive to write.) Vaccines are here and maybe we can stay ahead of any new strains of the coronavirus. I'd also like to reiterate that a new president takes office in two weeks — again assuming Trumpy is unable to pull off a successful coup — and 2021 simply can’t be as bad as its predecessor.
I’m currently re-reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, “No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II.” I was looking for a book to read that was similar to No Ordinary Time and finally thought, “why not just read the damn book itself.” I originally got it for Christmas in 1995 which means its been 25 years since I read it and — I know this may surprise you — I haven’t remembered every word. In fact, I believe I’m enjoying it more this time as I have such a greater breadth and depth of knowledge about that era and its principal characters than I did back when I was just a young whippersnapper.
Around this time of year I usually — if I haven’t already — present my top ten films of the year. It may come as a shock to you but we’ve not just emerged from a normal year. I haven’t set foot in a movie theater since last February and finding new releases has been a challenge. It will likely be several months before I’ve caught up with everything. As it is I’m not fully aware of the better films that were released last year nor where to find them. I may put out a preliminary list soon and a final one in the Spring. (God, I miss normality.)
So that was my first post of 2021. I hope everyone who happened upon it (Seamus Mohammed of Secaucus, New Jersey) enjoyed the read. I don’t know if I’ll be as prolific this year as last, but the quality will — I promise — remain….I’m going to go with "high."
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