The Tin Lizard

Billy Lynn's War

A new novel by Ben Fountain entitled "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" was recently reviewed as "the Catch-22 for Iraq."  It's not that.  It is, perhaps, inspired by Joseph Heller's earlier novel, but it's not as humorous; it's not set in the combat zone; and more important, I doubt that its point of view will come to define, for today's Iraq vets, what they experienced, in the way that Heller's novel did for the WWII generation. 

Still, it's an interesting book.  If like me you loath books dealing with Hollywood, starlets, and moguls (or in this case, football moguls and cheerleaders), you'll need to get beyond that.  But the place where Fountain really strikes home is in depicting the separation between the troops who fight the wars these days and the folks on the "home front" who go about their business largely oblivious to the sacrifices and trials of the grunts.  In a very real sense, the war in Iraq becomes surreal to the home crowd, for whom it's only something they see on TV, or in a packaged, faked-up hero/warrior image that's spoon-fed to the public. 

The handful of troops chosen as the focus for this honor in the novel realize that it's not a realistic depiction, yet can't do much about changing it.  The main character, Billy Lynn, "has noticed that [American] audiences don't seem to mind" the fakeness, which just

 "rolls right off them, maybe because the nonstop sales job of American life has instilled in them exceptionally high thresholds for sham, puff, spin, bullshit, and outright lies, in other words for advertising in all its forms." 

Shades of our political system, where candidates dare not speak truth, for people tend to kill the messenger who brings truth.  In the context of war, though, the "sales job" points up the differences between Heller's time and Fountains, and get us to thinking about whether it was such a wise thing to abandon conscription.

Pets At Work

I caught wind of the "fact" that sometime this week was "Take Your Pet To Work Day."

It made me think. 

Aren't there any adults in America any more? 

Mission Creepy

"Amok," as I recall, comes from the Malay language and refers to the crazed disregard of danger exhibited by tribesmen in battle against British troops.  The condition was attributed to the use of drugs.  Maybe the word will experience a new freshet of usage, since it seems to describe certain types of wild behavior we've seen lately, for example, the guy who was shot in Florida while literally chewing another man's face off.

It's not just people who can run amok, though.  Organizations can do it too. Today the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency is bringing new charges against cyclist Lance Armstrong.  I'm no particular fan[atic] of bicycle racing, but I do know that Armstrong has on numerous occasions been accused of using performance-enhancing drugs, yet tests have consistently shown no signs of it.  The USADA is a new accuser [of Armstrong], yet it just seems that they're out to persecute him.  It bothers me that despite the history, they can preemptively ban him from current competition; it bothers me too, that the agency chooses to pursue this beyond the expiration of the statutory limitation, with the argument that more recent evidence still can be adduced to prove old charges.  Whether or not the new investigation succeeds in incriminating Armstrong, when is enough enough?  

Surely the efforts of NYC Mayor Bloomberg to ban extra-large soft drinks is another case.  Whether or not a two-quart soda is good for you (and notwithstanding the smarmy protestations of the companies who make them, I think it's pretty certain it's NOT), most of us, surely, would say the mayor's fanaticism is outrunning his common sense.  If people are dumb enough to buy such drinks, let them.  Anyway, I'm sure the cup is jammed with ice, so that the actual soda in it amounts to no more than 4 ounces anyway.

Bloomberg's hubris represents a private/government blend.  As an entrepreneur-turned-pol, shouldn't he have a better sense of some limits on government regulation?  (Trick question: Generally private-sector tycoons seem to feel quite free to impose their personal foibles on their employees and even customers; it's just that we tend not to stigmatize them for that.) 

The purely private sector isn't immune, either.  I suggested once before that ICANN's plans to widely expand the available "top-level domains" for internet addresses (e.g., ".com," ",edu," .org" and similar) smacked of needless profiteering.  What are we to make, then, of the latest announcement regarding plans to create, and sell, entire such superdomains (e.g., ".book," ".grocery," or ".inc")?   It seems self-evident that the need for such broad domains disappears if a single company can "own" them.  If Amazon acquires the ".book" TLD, doesn't it become a huge empty field with only Amazon parked in it?  Or only those authors of which Amazon approves?  I can't see anything but overreach here.   If justice is truly sometimes poetic, perhaps we'll find that before these superdomains have produced much profit for ICANN (or Amazon), technology will have moved on to a completely different way of identifying web addresses. 

Also being posted on Morning Fog. 

The Great Heinz Pickle Mystery

As a kid of about four, I recall, I used to enjoy snacking on a whole dill pickle, applying cream cheese to it with a knife.  I would guess those dill pickles were probably Heinz, because in those days (late 40s) Heinz WAS pickles, and if there were other brands, nobody paid them much attention.  I also recollect that my mother for years used to invoke the Heinz name to indicate large quantity, as in "why, they've got more dresses in that store than Heinz has pickles!"

Things have changed, though.  The Heinz brand of pickles has disappeared from store shelves in my part of the country.  A decade ago, I could still find them in local drugstores (only the "spears" though); now, I am told in some parts of the country (California?) you can find them in Target and Wal-Mart grocery departments (but not in those stores in my area).   You can find a certain type of Heinz pickles being sold online, always in multipacks of huge jars.

Other interesting facts:  Heinz has abandoned the pickle as the theme logo for its "Heinz 57" products, in favor of the tomato.  If you search the Heinz website for "pickles" you won't find a trace of pickles among the product listings there (just a reference to the change of logo above).   If you ask Heinz's public relations department, as I did, whatever happened to their pickle business, you won't get an answer.  The website of Pickle Packers International, a trade organization, lists Heinz as a brand but offers scant info on where they exist.  Finally, a recent Consumer Reports review of pickles covered a number of brands, but failed to give Heinz even a mention, indicating that CR doesn't consider Heinz a player in pickles any longer. 

Well, there are indeed a lot of other kinds of pickles now available, from brands that didn't exist 50 years ago, to locally produced deli brands, so fortunately we aren't lacking for pickles.  Personally, I like the brand purveyed by my local supermarket chain under its own name.  If Mom were still alive, she'd have to adopt a new phrase, but I'm not actively hunting for Heinz pickles except as a matter of curiosity. 

Still, the apparent disappearance of Heinz makes an interesting product life-cycle story.  It seems from all indicators that Heinz has deemphasized pickles in its product line, and may have stopped producing them at all, or could be producing them to be sold under other brand names. If so, those still available, whether on California store shelves or in odd packaging online, may soon be a new category of "collectible."

 

 

Preposterously Pompous Poetizing

We in the Washington DC area are treated every year or so to the announcement that a new U.S. Poet Laureate has been selected.  This government position, paying $35,000 per year, falls under the Library of Congress, which I suppose is the reason we in Washington usually hear about the appointment.

This year, the new PL (actually the full correct title is "Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the U.S. Library of Congress", which we'll call PLaCoPUSLoC for "short")  is a woman from Mississippi,  Natasha Trethewey.

You can learn a lot from the Wikipedia article on poets laureate in the U.S.  For example, the PLaCoPUSLoC's salary of $35,000, at the time it was initiated in 1937, was intended to be a generous stipend that would permit the appointee to live free of financial worries while he/she laureated.  And, quite a few states also have Poets Laureate.  Ms. Trethewey is currently the Poet Laureate of Mississippi.

What the Wikipedia article doesn't tell us is why anyone needs a poet laureate.  To compose poems to commemorate special events, is the ostenisble purpose.  But when did you last hear such poems?  Probably in commemoration of 9/11 at some point.  What happens to them, and what real purpose do they serve?  And wouldn't plain old vanilla poets be inspired to write in commemoration of such an event?  Isn't just a bit over-the-top in the Congressional pomposity sweepstakes? 

We can, I suppose, be grateful that no one has thought to raise the PLaCoPUSLoC 's salary.  $35,000 may not be a huge drop in the government's bucket, but we don't have a Novelist Laureate (do we?) or a Political Speechwriter Laureate, and poetry is no longer part of the warp and woof of American society (if ever it was).  Please, Congress, let's make the new Poet Laureate the last one. 

Stylewise

Fashion is an important marketing tool.  Every year in certain fields (women's clothing being one of the main ones) style mavens make their pronouncements:  This year, perhaps, the must-have color is lime green, hemlines are up, and three-quarter sleeves are all the rage; next year, it will be sky-blue, ankle-length, whatever. 

I often wonder who listens to these "experts."  My wife has often found that it's these outlandish "in" colors that look good on no one, that remain on the deep-discount racks at the end of the season.  The secret, I think, is that the real fashion prognosticators are a cabal of manufacturers, who decide what they'll do to make things look different this year, then put out the word to the supposedly independent arbiters.

We men are more fortunate.  Most of us would laugh at the concept of a new "in" color for men's suits, or even casual wear like polos.  Despite occasional attempts to change that, haberdashers have found, I think, that a foray into some strange new shade or style usually ends in a retailing disaster.  Nevertheless, we're not totally immune.  Every two or three decades somebody will decide we need three-button suits (à la Richard Nixon) instead of two, though in the current environment, doubtless causing the would-be game-changers considerable anguish, people seem to have decided for themselves to wear whichever they want.  (And who wears suits anymore, anyway?)

Home decorating has become another bastion of ever-changing styles to push sales.  Today, for example, one report tells us our future lies in bright colors for upholstered furniture, such as "tangerine tango."  But trends are quickly overtaken by new trends.  We bought a house in 1976, fully outfitted with pink metal kitchen cabinets that were hot stuff in the 1950s (and which we quickly changed); and a different one in the 80s, where we had to swap out a batch of avocado-colored appliances to avoid the feeling we were in a time machine.  

Even the interior decor columnist who imparts the above revelation about "tangerine tango," however, admits that two years hence, he's "not going to want a tangerine-colored dining room." He prescribes caution and graduality in following any trends. That's great advice.