Bang A Gong

As I unpacked the groceries a couple of days back I set aside the three small bags of mixed nuts in-the-shell. You know, the kind you struggle to break open without smashing the contents to smithereens, failing most of the time even on a good day.

And I mused.

The purchased mix was English walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pecans, and Brazil nuts. With some trepidation based on years of dashed expectations, I picked up a nutcracker and had at a walnut. As I applied pressure to the arms of the tool the walnut suddenly shot out and hit the wall.

I had forgotten that while we have two nutcrackers, one of them is so lacking in all aspects of performance that what just happened was not actually a malfunction, it was what it does! Each year I think that I’ve thrown it away but then the next December rolls around and out pops the Nutcracker from Hell to darken one more day.

Apparently simply trashing it is not enough, it needs to be buried by someone acting quite alone and under a full moon. If a silver spade is handy it is the preferred practice, but if not a steel one will do the job most of the time.

The hole must be at least three feet deep, and the device buried face down. This is where things often go wrong because it is exceedingly difficult to tell the face from the back on a nutcracker.

In my childhood it was Grandpa Jacobson who put out the nuts to shell each year at Christmas, and I still attempt to maintain that tradition when I can. It is the reason I purchase these bags of frustration each year.

In my family of origin, the only nuts occasionally found in the cupboard were walnuts used in baking, and salted peanuts for snacking. So the varieties offered at Christmas time were special.

But what was this? Here came the cosmic joke. These delicacies were not just be picked up , be amazed at, and then eaten. Nossir. You needed a tool to bring them out into the open. And even when the tool worked properly, you might have these problems to deal with:

• the frequent mummified nutmeat, inedible and very sad-looking
• the process of removing the nuts from their shells resulted in their being shattered 99% of the time
• the shell fragments are sharp and pointy things of various sizes that find their way to the floor and would be discovered by barefooted early risers the next morning, producing much involuntary hooting followed by careful tweezering to remove them.

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Another sad article in the Times of New York on Thursday. The death rate from measles in the Congo is much higher this year than in the past, the reason unclear. The disease is epidemic there, not because of resistance to the idea of vaccines but because of problems with getting the highly effective preventative to the people in that beleaguered country. People who want their children protected but either have inadequate local medical resources or none at all.

Here in the U.S. we have a more than adequate supply of the measles vaccine, and enough medical personnel to get it to every child. The only problem is what is euphemistically called vaccine resistance. My own take is that it could be better named epidemic vaccine ignoramus syndrome. Parents who will summon their inner gullible and listen to an anti-science influencer peddling bad information, and in doing so place their children’s health and life at risk on either the flimsiest of grounds or no grounds at all.

The whole sorry mess doth make the blood boil in an ancient pediatrician’s breast. We were so close to eradicating this particular bit of nastiness from the world that it is appalling to watch what is happening out there now. I would like to see those influencers dealt with using the shouting fire in a crowded theater rule. Turn over their rock and somehow hold them responsible for the effects of spreading deluded misinformation. Perhaps make them pallbearers at the childrens’ funerals.

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Read a review today of a new film that sounded intriguing. When I reached the end of the piece I ran headlong into this paragraph:

Almodóvar’s films often explore doubles: mothers and daughters, pairs of lovers, twisted friends. “The Room Next Door” does the same, in several different registers, and I think that’s the point of the title. We cannot really know what another person is going through. Even if we follow Weil’s exhortation and ask, we’re incapable of fully inhabiting another person. We can’t live inside of them. The real act of friendship, of love, is to check on one another in the morning and make sure we’re still there. 

NYTimes: The Room Next Door

What that bit of writing meant to me is that living out here hundreds of miles from any metropolis as I do, I will not ever be able to walk into our local theater here in Paradise and watch the movie. It might not even make it as far as Grand Junction. Very thoughtful films with deep themes and deep characters just don’t sell enough tickets to be able to compete with the comic-book universe.

I went back through the review one more time and found absolutely no reference to superpowers, things being blown sky-high, or hyper-powered automobiles and their drivers being pitted against one another in meaningless confrontations. Don’t get me wrong, I am not whimpering about the situation but only describing a reality. I’ve met one of the theater owners and like him. I appreciate very much that occasionally he will bring a film to town that surprises me, and that the convenience of driving only a couple of miles to see it is gratifying. I also realize that showing films like “The Room Next Door” week after week would probably mean that the theater would not survive and even those rare surprises would go away.

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Every great once in a while when I am hiking a particularly beautiful stretch of trail above treeline I will break out into my butchered version of the following song. In doing so I embarrass my companions and alarm others we meet on the path. I can see those strangers checking their phones to see if there is cellular coverage in case I am coming down with trail rage.

I don’t care. It’s me and my inner Pavarotti and some mild hypoxia having a great time together.

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Lastly, and because it is Christmas and all, I feel the need to make a confession. In 1958, when I was a stripling and completely devoid of anything approaching musical taste, I first heard the Harry Simeone Chorale version of “Little Drummer Boy” while piloting my 1950 Ford coupe on a nameless highway somewhere in Minnesota, probably on my way to doing something slightly illegal involving spiritus fermenti. The little fable and simple arrangement stayed with me, and I was not surprised when it later became a big hit, eventually joining that select list of tunes and carols that are played at Christmastime every year.

Here is the Chorale appearing on the Ed Sullivan show in 1959. Pretty, tasteful, melodic, serene.

Over time there were many many other artists who covered this song, most of them respectful of the original vibe, most of them not quite coming up to the original, IMHO. (But remember, devoid of musical taste). And then a few short years ago, these brothers came along, blew the song apart, restructured it, and had a hit on their hands. With modern stagecraft, enough percussion to be the background music for Sherman’s march through Georgia, and strobe lighting of the sort that brings on seizures, King and Country added their version to the canon.

Where does the confession come in? Well, my favorite version is still the original one by the Chorale. But there is a little militaristic and mindless part of me that can be sucked right up into a bit of bombast. So once each year I play King and Country for myself, watching the video on YouTube and listening on headphones, so that no one is aware of my solitary and shameful vice.

And I know I can count on you not to rat me out, right?

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