2001 A Space Odyssey

Some time recently I read Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke, the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey.   The book was good, though rather depressing in its ultimate outcome.  I had seen the movie form of 2001 several times, but was never impressed.  It was not only fairly long (over two hours) but also very dull.  But I figured the novel might be a different story – and it was.

 Here’s an interesting fact: the novel was written simultaneously with the production of the movie by Stanley Kubrick.  The movie premiered on April 2, 1968, whereas the book was released in June 1968 (hardback) and July 1968 (paperback).  Anyone attending the premiere would have had no access to the book.  Audiences’ reactions were mixed: Rock Hudson was quoted as complaining, “can someone tell me what this is all about?”, whereas the Doors, forced to see the film from the front row (the only seats left) were knocked out and impressed; Morrison stood up and said, “Well, that’s the best movie I’ve ever seen, we can go now.”  For my part, I shared Hudson’s impression.

 Unfortunately for most of us (including me), the movie surgically extracts the plot and leaves us with barking monkeys, man vs. homicidal computer, and an extravagant light show.  The novel, as you might expect, fills in the gaps and tells us what is really going on, particularly useful and necessary towards the end.

 Let’s start with the movie, sans novel.

Part I.  Apes jump around mysterious monolith, grab bones, and start kicking ass.

Part II.  Humans find monolith on the moon.  “Gee, that’s peculiar” (in Eddie Murphy mocking white people voice).

Part III.  Astronauts go off to Jupiter on a big ship.  The computer, HAL 9000, suddenly goes apes**t and kills off all but one of the astronauts.  The surviving astronaut, Bowman, succeeds at neutralizing the computer and continuing the mission.

Part IV.  Bowman makes it to Jupiter and enters the master monolith, which was just floating out in space.  After an extended, very trippy light show, he winds up inside a fancy hotel room, grows old, and becomes a fetus (mother unknown).

After witnessing this for two hours, most of us (even those partaking of chemicals or herbs to enhance the movie-watching experience) have the same reaction: W T F?

 Here’s the explanation the novel provides but Kubrick did not.

Part I.  Apes can’t do much except hoot and holler, even at each other.  The leopard is at the top of the food chain.  The monolith comes from nowhere (this is 3 million years ago) and scans, probes, and analyzes the apes.  Finally it puts the suggestion in the alpha male (Moon-watcher) head of “try making a tool out of something”.  Moon-watcher crafts a crude club, teaches the others to do the same (and sharpen stones, etc.) and pretty soon they’ve got the idea.  Now they can not only assert dominance over the competing tribe of apes, but also take down the much-feared leopard and jump to the top of the food chain.  This sets the apes on the road to humanity – to become us.  (“And there was much rejoicing.”)

 Part II.  Humans find the monolith on the moon.  It is clearly NOT natural and was deliberately buried on the moon, though with an unmistakable magnetic signature someone was sure to recognize and start digging.  Whoever left it there, left it there to be discovered.  Sure enough, when uncovered and exposed to sunlight, it immediately sends a transmission in the direction of Saturn (movie: Jupiter).  The monolith is 3 millions years old, so it’s clearly alien.  And the aliens are probably not from Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, or anywhere else in the solar system.  Whatever is on Saturn is most likely itself a relay to the stars. 

 Part III.  5 astronauts are on Discovery, two remaining awake and the other three in suspended animation.  Another ship, Discovery II, is being built, but will not be ready for several years.  The plan is that once this crew reaches Saturn, they will go into stasis (cared for by HAL) and the next ship will wake them up when they get there.  That’s the plan, at least.

            HAL 9000 abruptly decides – on its own – that for some reason, the astronauts are inimical to his plan and must be wiped out.  It sets Bowman off on a wild goose chase to fix an antenna that isn’t broken.  It shuts down life support on the sleeping astronauts, killing them.  It also killed Poole, the other conscious astronaut.  Bowman, exercising extreme discretion and care, manages to deactivate HAL.  However, since he knows the next ship won’t be there for years, and he would need HAL to remain in stasis, deactivating HAL means the trip to Saturn will probably result in his death.  Nevertheless, he decides to complete his mission and see what happens.

            He does reach Japetus, the moon of Saturn on which the master monolith exists, and manages to “enter” it.  Light show?  Yes.   Hotel?  Yes.  However, this proves to be a gate to another dimension, and Bowman…well, I don’t want to spoil the surprise.  But suffice to say that Clarke actually DOES explain what happens to Bowman, and it differs considerably from the movie ending. 

 Normally book & movie complement each other so that reading the book is not necessary to understand the movie.  Not so here.  My recommendation would be to read the novel, then watch the movie again (no matter how many times you may have seen it before) and enjoy it now that you can FINALLY understand what is really going on.  Voila!  

Mad Men

Recently, after some delay, the fifth season of “Mad Men” started up.  I have yet to see an episode of that season, but I did finally finish watching the prior four seasons.  It’s grown on me after a few months.  Here’s the deal.

 Madison Avenue, New York City, 1959-65.  A fictional ad agency, Sterling Cooper, competes for various corporate (and non-profit) accounts, even competing with real life agencies whose names I recognize.  Of course, all the partners are male, and it’s with some difficulty and controversy that one worker, Peggy Olson, becomes a copywriter as opposed to simply a secretary. 

 Don Draper (Jon Hamm).  The main character; he eventually makes partner.  Draper is the creative genius at Sterling Cooper and inevitably the go-to guy for their ad campaigns.  The firm would be nothing without him.  Unfortunately for his wife Betty (January Jones) he can’t seem to keep his pants on.  Every season we have to see which skirt he’s chasing into bed.  Eventually the couple breaks up.  From flashbacks we learn that his childhood was extremely unhappy (banjo playing Great Depression farm scene), though how that justifies his current behavior is not really explained (“I was an unhappy kid.  Let me have my fun now.”).

            He’s also hiding a secret past – and a completely different identity stemming from a mishap in the Korean War.  How he kept that secret all this time is one of the biggest plot holes in the series.  I’d have made him some “Manchurian Candidate” after being captured by the Chinese, but they went with this story instead.

            I find him only borderline sympathetic.  His talent at the office is offset by his personal life.  The stupid thing about it is his wife is fairly attractive and not very bothersome.  She does a fair job (by no means perfect) of raising their two children Sally and Bobby, and is neither greedy, dishonest, nor difficult.  She compares favorably with most of the women Don cheats with, possibly excepting the real Draper’s wife (and that relationship appears to be platonic).   My favorite was the Jewish woman, Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff).

            Like most of the men on this show, he likes to drink.  If “vodka martini, shaken, not stirred” is James Bond’s signature cocktail, the Old Fashioned is Draper’s.  It seems the first thing anyone does when he walks into an office – particularly Draper and Sterling, especially together – is pour a drink.

 Bert Cooper (Robert Morse).  He’s the senior partner; he worked with Sterling’s father to create the agency and is more a source of down-to-earth wisdom and overall strategy than any creative input.   He tends to favor Asian and abstract art, so he’s a bit of an enigma who the lesser lights (particularly Kinsey) try to impress.

 Roger Sterling (John Slattery).  Competing neck-and-neck with Draper for cynical infidelity, but at least Draper actually contributes substantially to the firm’s output.  Sterling doesn’t seem to think up anything, so much as wine, dine, and schmooze the various clients to persuade them to stay or switch firms; he’s more of a rainmaker than an ad guy.  His (ex) wife is older and his kids are close to grown up.

 Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser).  Next tier down is “Mr. Campbell”, who owns one bright blue suit.  He’s an aggressive, up-and-coming ad guy who wants to be account manager.  This puts him in competition with Cosgrove.  He has a cute wife, Trudi (played by Alison Brie, the cute brunette on “Community”) who’s been trying to get pregnant, without much success.  However, he does get along with her parents (even better than he does with his own), and she’s very supportive of his career.

 Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton).  Cosgrove is fairly normal: his big thing is that he got some fiction published, much to the envy of the other copywriters (all frustrated novelists, it seems).   Besides that, nothing remarkable.

 Harry Crane (Rich Sommer).  Crane is a bit of a nerd, but he works hard and carves an important niche for himself by single-handedly developing Sterling Cooper’s TV ad section.  I like how he figured it out himself and threw himself into it.

 Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis).  Pipe smoking, black-girl dating, pot toking, semi-beatnik anti-establishment guy, very pretentious, but still a worthwhile contributor to Sterling Cooper.

 Sal Romano (Bryan Batt).  The artistic director, a tall Italian guy, set off my gaydar fairly early and sure enough proves to be deep in the closet.  Ultimately he’s cast aside when the Lucky Strikes guy makes a pass at him and he declines. 

 Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks).  110 octane of DD cup woman; she’s the head secretary and briefly has an affair with Roger.  She marries a doctor (Rex’s love child from “DH”) but still has some feelings for Roger.  Inevitably all the girls at Sterling Cooper have to answer to her.

 Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss).  She’s not particularly attractive, but she is smart, and makes some inroads into this heavily male-dominated industry.  But she’s not an angel.  In fact, she managed to go through nine months of pregnancy without even realizing it until the baby popped out.  Maybe not so bright….

 Lane Pryce (Jared Harris).  When Sterling Cooper are bought out by a British company, Pryce comes in to manage things, mainly to veto expenses and make unpopular decisions, but eventually he becomes a far more sympathetic character.  

 The characters smoke nonstop even knowing (thanks to Lucky Strike’s scientific research) that smoking is bad for them.  Later on, Kinsey introduces Peggy to marijuana, which she enjoys.  There are NO black, Jewish, or Hispanic members; the firm shows not the slightest interest in hiring anyone who isn’t a WASP; and Peggy had her work cut out for her getting her own position, thanks to Draper’s intervention.  The top two men, Draper and Sterling, can’t keep their pants on.  I see a modest amount of recognition of the world outside the office:  the Kennedy-Nixon election in 1960 (they all favor Nixon), the Johnson-Goldwater election in 1964 (they all favor Goldwater), not much mention of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a few mentions of the growing unpleasantness in Vietnam, and one brief mention of the Beatles.  The biggest invasion of the outside world into the show's consciousness is the Kennedy Assassination in November 1963.

 Obviously, what goes on after hours – or even during hours, for that matter (Draper makes his own schedule) with this “men [and Peggy] behaving badly” business is part of what gives “Mad Men” its flavor, though I’d say that this ingredient is not particularly unique to the show.  It wouldn’t be “Mad Men” if Don Draper only nailed Betty.  But it’s the less prurient elements of the show which specifically distinguish “Mad Men” from similar competing dramas.  Fortunately, at least 60% of the show is really the work environment:  how they land clients, how they steal clients, how they lose clients, what they do to keep the clients happy, and how they develop their ad campaigns.   That is the part of the show I like best.  For all their infidelity and problems, these people genuinely have to be creative and come up with things out of thin air.  We haven’t reached January 1967, so it’s too early to tell if they get any Super Bowl accounts.  We’ll have to wait and see…

Baron Haussmann

As I promised, here is the scoop on Georges-Eugene Haussmann, better known as Baron Haussmann, part of the tag-team duo with Emperor Napoleon III who completely remade Paris in the third quarter of the nineteenth century between 1852 and 1870.  My source is Haussmann: His Life and Times, and the Making of Modern Paris, by Michel Carmona.  It’s a fairly long and detailed book on his life and how he managed to remake Paris, but certainly an excellent source of information on France from his birth to death.

 Several generations before him, the Haussmanns moved from what is now Germany to France and became French.  From a relative with a noble title, GEH earned the title of Baron, though in practice his vocation was as a prefect (governor) of different parts of France before becoming prefect of Paris.  This was at a time when Paris had no mayor, the role essentially being filled by the prefect.

 The Haussmann story cannot be told without mentioning Napoleon III, also known as Louis Napoleon.   Nowadays it seems N3 is more known as an unsuccessful dictator who messed around in the Crimea, Italy, Mexico, and Southeast Asia (French Indochina) and lost France to the Prussians in 1870 – he was even captured at Sedan.  But I believe this overshadows his far more significant achievement: rebuilding Paris with the help of his prefect, Haussmann.

 1848 was a busy and interesting time in Europe.  Several countries experienced revolutions; Marx and Engels published their Communist Manifesto.  N3 came back from exile to win the election in late 1848 and become president of France; in December 1852 he succeeded in a bloodless coup to become its emperor, establishing the Second Empire; the first was obviously Napoleon Bonaparte’s.  The latter was actually his uncle; N3 was the son of NB’s older brother Louis.  “Napoleon II”, NB’s actual son, never achieved power, dying in “captivity” in Austria.   Remarkably, N3 spent almost no time in Paris before becoming President.  Most of his life had been spent in exile in Switzerland and England plotting his return to France. 

Upon his return, N3 had brought with him a marked up map of Paris which described his plans.  At that time Paris was still a densely populated city with very few large, wide avenues, more medieval in nature than modern.  N3 had the idea of decompressing the city, allowing it to breathe with more park space and wide avenues cutting across the city and linking up the rail stations with each other; without this it was difficult to cross the city with any speed.  Critics argued the purpose of the wider avenues was to discourage and hamper the use of barricades, but the aesthetic and practical convenience alone of these changes reduces the force of such arguments.  As it was, N3’s colored map went up in flames when the Hotel de Ville was torched by the Communards (aka the Congressional Progressive Caucus) in May 1871.

 If N3 had the basic vision, it was the prefect, Haussmann, who figured out how to turn that vision into reality.  Haussmann was an expert administrator, a clever bureaucrat who know “how to get things done”.  He used eminent domain to condemn huge sections of town – though the owners were compensated – so the demolition and rebuilding could occur.  He managed the financial chicanery necessary to finance the construction, by bonds and finance companies.  He even threw in a few ideas of his own (e.g. the Etoile).  The Opera building itself and the district around it, the Bois de Boulogne, and Les Halles also date from this period under Haussmann’s direction.

 To be honest, I found this “political sausage-making” part of the story fairly dull.  What intrigued me was the way in which Paris changed.  Most of the work was done in the 1850s-1860s, mostly wrapped up in time for the World’s Fair in 1867 and the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.  Another big issue is sanitation:  Haussmann was responsible for installing the sewer system.  This, combined with the larger avenues, dramatically improved the hygiene of the city.  Of course, this meant razing large areas formerly inhabited by less wealthy elements of Parisian society; the new buildings were much nicer and out of the price range of the former residents.  Part of the “financing” was that not only were the new blocks sold at a profit, the improved property values beefed up the real estate tax income of the city.  But this pushed the riff-raff further out.

 In fact, Haussmann presided over a substantial expansion of the city itself.  What had been immediate suburbs were urbanized and the city’s current 20 arrondissement size dates from this time.  With the major exceptions of the Eiffel Tower (1889) and the Paris Metro (1900), most of what we know of today as “Paris” was shaped and formed during Haussmann’s tenure.  This includes Blvd. Malesherbes, which opened in 1861.  This was the street I lived on from 1984 to 1990.  Considerable work was done in this part of town and around Gare St. Lazare, which was only minutes from where I lived, and the station I used most often (mainly to commute to school from spring 1984 to June 1986).

 Downfall.  By now we take Paris in its present form for granted, but back then these “grand travaux” (major works) involved destruction of much of “Old Paris”, which some misguided dolts treasured in its own right.  Moreover, the methods themselves opened up the arrogant and aggressive Haussmann to not merely aesthetic criticism, but outright allegations of corruption and self-dealing.  By mid-1870 this opposition had reached a critical mass so strong that even Napoleon III couldn’t protect his subordinate – and he was out.  But by then they soon had a far more urgent concern than urban renewal and shady real estate deals:  the Prussians had defeated the French Army at Sedan and were soon besieging Paris itself.  

 Modern impressions.  I’ve been to NYC several times over the last few years, and I’ve noticed a major contrast with Paris.  Below First Street, Manhattan has the more irregular streets we associate with European cities, but the buildings are still all different styles and heights.  Above First Street, the avenues are completely straight.  Looking south simply hits the brick wall of oddly-angled streets, but west you can see straight to New Jersey, east to Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx, and north uptown with Central Park in the middle.  But despite the regularity of the streets, the buildings are completely different. 

 Paris, on the other hand, has consistent heights of the blocks, block after block across the whole city.  It’s like it has a crew cut.  Moreover, the facades are consistent in style, none of the dramatic heterogeneity which American cities have.   The latter element was actually established in the late eighteenth century, but Haussmann can take credit for the former.  But the ultimate credit for Paris as we know it now goes to both Haussmann and Napoleon III.  None of the latter’s political and foreign policy failures mean nearly so much in 2012 as his impact on Paris today.

Van Halen 2012

Last week my as-cool-as-can-be brother (the only one I have) invited me to see Van Halen in concert at the Verizon Center in Washington DC.  Needless to say, I accepted – and enjoyed it.  I had seen Van Halen before, but those shows were with Sammy Hagar:  OU812 tour in 1988 at RFK (Van Halen’s Monsters of Rock, with Kingdom Come, Metallica, Dokken, and the Scorpions opening) and the F.U.C.K. tour in 1991 at the now-gone Cap Center with Alice in Chains (R.I.P. Layne Staley) opening.

 VH have reformed with David Lee Roth on vocals and Wolfgang Van Halen (Eddie’s son) on bass.  I still do not understand why Michael Anthony is persona non grata, whether it’s due to some deliberate attempt to avoid splitting money with him, excessive monetary demands on his part, or just Eddie’s preference to allow his son to play.  Having said that, WVH did a competent job on bass, and absent the zzz bass solo which Anthony could have expected to inflict upon us, was indistinguishable to my ears.

 David Lee Roth, on the other hand, is inimitable.  Now his hair is cut short.  Sammy Hagar, for all his down-to-earth, likeable amiability, is actually a victim of his good nature.  He is actually TOO nice.  You can honestly imagine him having a beer or tequila with literally any member of the audience, male or female, with zero arrogance or pretension.  Roth strikes me as the kind of guy you need to pass through a David Spade-type “and you are….” handler to approach.  But lo and behold, that phony show-biz persona actually works for him.  Go figure.  Is it a “true reunion” without Anthony on bass?  No.  But in between this version with Roth, and “Van Hagar” with Hagar and Anthony (not that Roth and Anthony are mutually exclusive) I think I speak for most, if not all, VH fans when I say I’ll take the Roth w/o Anthony VH bastard over the Hagar w/Anthony VH bitch any day.

 By the way, I wouldn’t mind seeing Chickenfoot (the Hagar w/Anthony “supergroup” also featuring Joe Satriani and Chad Smith/Aronoff), but they’ve yet to realize that DC is on the map, and I don’t like them enough to drive to Atlantic City or NYC to see them. 

 For his part, Roth did not disappoint.  He was on his game and enjoying himself immensely: 100% showman, vaudeville huckster, even a bit… swishy (even swishier than Rob Halford!).  But he hit the notes, kicked around a bit, and kept us entertained with banter (though to me, both Bruce Dickinson and Ian Anderson are still tied for top).  Very few frontmen can match DLR for style.  As I said, he is irreplaceable in Van Halen.

 Set list:  heavy on VH1 (Running With the Devil, Eruption, Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love, You Really Got Me, Jamie’s Cryin’, Ice Cream Man), VH2 (Dance the Night Away, Beautiful Girls, Somebody Get Me A Doctor), Diver Down (Pretty Woman, The Full Bug, Hang ‘Em High); 4 songs from the new album, A Different Kind of Truth (Tattoo, She’s The Woman, China Town, Blood And Fire) a few from 1984 (I’ll Wait, Hot For Teacher, Panama, and Jump) and just one each from Women and Children First (Everybody Wants Some) and Fair Warning (Unchained – not Mean Street, the song I most wanted to hear). 

 Alex’s drum solo was mercifully short, and Eddie’s extended guitar solo featured “Cathedral” and “Eruption”, as could be expected (as I recalled from the prior shows – one aspect in which “Van Hagar” was no worse than this current version).  I had forgotten how good he really is.  Dweezil Zappa joked that when he first heard the Kinks play “You Really Got Me”, his reaction was, “these guys really butchered that Van Halen song”.  Eddie played through his signature Peavey amps (5 full stacks), and had at least two of the older-style Strat-types with the distinctive red/white/black stripes, though not the classic original Kramer with the humbucker falling out.  Mostly he used his Peavey signature model, which I find rather dull considering his flamboyant style.

 Bottom line: make no mistake, this band rocks, and will keep you entertained for the duration of the festivities, all 2 hours.  I’m getting older, so many concerts veer towards tedium for me – particularly if I’ve seen the band before.  But here I was wide awake from start to finish.  Bravo!

 I even got an excellent tour shirt, but here’s a question:  why not sell brown M&Ms with the VH logo?  Missed the boat on that one.  Get on it, people!