"In the Distance" by Hernán Diaz

 

Håkan Söderström, is the giant of a man who is the hero of Hernán Diaz’s novel, “In the Distance.” The novel centers on a young Swedish immigrant to the U.S. who after becoming separated from his brother, Linus, arriving in San Francisco rather than New York, heads east to join his brother. The novel takes places sometime between the gold rush of 1849 and the civil war.

Håkan is a huge guy when he arrives and then throughout the novel he keeps growing. He always stands out - first because of his hugeness and secondly because of his limited English, which is compounded by his shyness. He tries to avoid problems/trouble, but cannot. As he travels ever eastward Håkan meets a strange assortment of frontier folks: a crazy Irish gold prospector, a woman with no teeth who keeps him as her plaything, a naturalist seeking life's secrets, a sadistic sheriff and amoral civil war soldiers. 

He learns self sufficiency as part of his journey becoming adept at trapping animals and foraging for food. This is partially the result of his having become a wanted man as a result of his having killed men -- something that he was driven by circumstances to do.

In the end our hero is driven to hiding in the wilderness, living in dugout dirt homes, and trapping and foraging for food. Years pass in this manner and Håkan loses himself in the rhythm of fixing his tunnel/house, trapping, picking wild plants, cooking, and doing all the previous over and over again. 

The novel was nominated for the Pulitzer and has many parallels in American literature. It is a kind of anti-western, one where, unlike The Virginian or Lonesome Dove, the hero does not triumph in obvious ways, but rather like more of the settlers of the west Håkan triumphs through perseverance. He has his moments of using traditional violence to overcome obstacles, and while these win the day, they also set him back through making him a wanted man. 

While for the majority of the novel, like an inverted Huckleberry Finn, he is striking out for New York, yet, in the end he ends up striking out, alone in Alaska to cross the Asian continent back to Sweden.

Anderson Paak- Come Down (live)

Big Frank has been listening to a lot of Anderson .Paak lately. Above is one of his best tunes "Come Down."

            Hey, now you, drank up all my liquor, come on

            What I'm 'posed to do now? (Hey, what I'm 'posed to do now?)
            And you talkin' all that shit, now come on
            You gon' have to back it up (ay, you gon' have to back it up)

             If I get too high now, sugar, come on
             II might never come down (I might never come down)

Now keep in mind that Anderson .Paak is a happily married 36 year-old with a couple of kids. So don't confuse the musician/singer with the character in the narrative of the song. That story line that is made more graphic in one music video that includes video of a guy in the background puking, fighting, threatening behavior, ... all of which goes totally with the lyrics above "If I get too high now, sugar, come on/ I might never come down (I might never come down).

As Live 365 puts it: "Listening to "Come Down" is like being a spy at a party. The vibe is lively and flamboyant, yet there's some kind of toxic behavior happening within the celebration's background. Is it possible to be mad and happy at the same time?" Indeed, Big Frank for one totally remembers times when the party crossed the line (or did it?).

Next, above, "Am I Wrong? and Let's Dance." This develops more a dance groove laying down a steady four on the floor with some beautiful guitar chords. Then .Paak comes in singing "I'm only comin out to play. The lyric gives a kind of carpe diem line about life not being something to be wasted. So one should "romance like you dance:" "Am I wrong to assume/if she can't dance/then she can't ooh." The groove keeps on with the drumbeat and the funky baseline. Big Frank thinks only the leaden footed will not be dancin by this point. Terrific song.

Andrew Jackson

 

Big Frank just finished Jon  Meacham's biography of Andrew Jackson entitled American Lion:Andrew Jackson in the White House. While not exclusively a hagiography it never veers for long from the path of praise. The general thrust of the book is perhaps nicely captured by the above statue of Jackson which is in the center of Lafayette Square within President's Park in Washington, D.C., just to the north of the White House. Jackson is in uniform (modeled after the one he worn at the Battle of New Orleans), raising his hat with his right hand, while controlling the reins with his left hand as his horse rises on its rear legs (see above). This is the image of Jackson the war hero and the president who kept the union together thus postponing the Civil War for some two decades.

In the wake of the George Floyd demonstrations Andrew Jackson, along with many other American prominent historical figures were reexamined and found to be deeply flawed. Jackson's darker legacy as a slave holder and exterminator of Native Americans came to the fore. This centers primarily on Jackson's responsibility for the forced removal of Cherokee to Oklahoma in 1836-1850, which resulted in the deaths of some 4,000 Native Americans. The pedestal of the above statute was painted with the inscription "killer" and the demonstrators tied ropes and tried to topple the statue. Jackson stood firm and 4 of the demonstrators later were changed with destruction of federal property.

In reading this biography Big Frank was mostly left by Meacham, the author, with a generally positive view of Jackson. Jackson's role in the removal of the Cherokee was given much less press than his role in preserving the union, which centered primarily on his facing down South Carolina, led by John C. Calhoun, on the issue of nullification. In addition, Jackson like many of the early presidents, 12 out of 18, were slaveholders. Unlike Washington, Jackson did not free any of his slaves ever.

So, what's his positive legacy. For good or bad, Jackson is responsible for the strengthening of the presidency viz a vis the other two branches (legislature and supreme court). Strengthening and modeling its make towards the president's position today. Some of the ways future presidents followed Jackson were these as listed by Meacham:

• Running at the head of a national party;
• Fighting for a mandate from the people to govern in particular ways on particular issues;
• Depending on a circle of insiders and advisers;
• Using the media to transmit a consistent message at a constant pace; and
• Using the veto as political, not just a constitutional, weapon.

Some of the many other insights that Meacham brought out in his biography were how ill Jackson was for most of his presidency. It doesn't really matter which year or time you are talking about, Jackson was not well. He suffered from rotting teeth, chronic headaches, failing eyesight, bleeding in his lungs from TB, internal infections and pain from two bullet wounds from two separate duels. Yet despite all these he served two terms and was fully involved in both.

Another aspect brought to the fore in this biography was what came to be Jackson's adopted family: the Donaldsons, Andrew and Emily and four children. Andrew and Emily were first cousins and Emily was the niece of Jackson's wife, Sarah, who died before Jackson moved to Washington. Emily in a way took the place socially of Jackson's wife and became the White House hostess. Her husband Andrew served as Jackson's first secretary and all of them lived in the White House. Emily died of TB in the final year of the Jackson presidency. She was 29 at that time and at home in Nashville, looking out the window waiting for her husband to return from D.C. He arrived two days too late.

Emily Donaldson

During the first two years of his presidency Martin Van Buren, who was serving at that time as secretary of state and later as vice-president during Jackson's second term, went for horseback rides with Jackson every morning. Perhaps that led to the following political cartoon from 1836 of Jackson in a horserace with Martin Van Buren and others vying for the presidency at that time. The cartoon takes a slice of reality, Jackson on a visit to a racecourse when in danger from a wild horse said to Van Buren, "Get behind me, Mr. Van Buren. He will run you over." In time, as shown in the cartoon those words are thrown out as coming from Jackson as he rides Van Buren to victory in a race with the others running for president at that time: Daniel Webster, Hugh Lawson White, and William Henry Harrison.

Finally, Jackson lived outside of Nashville on a 1,000 acre cotton plantation with at the time of his death 110 slaves. He naturally had to make a number of trips to Washington and back from his home in Nashville. Each journey at that time prior to railroads took around a month. It's hard to imagine making such a journey under the conditions at the time, largely stage coaches with stops at fairly primitive inns along the way. Breakdowns were frequent as was the loss of baggage. When Andrew Donaldson returned to Nashville, belatedly as noted above, he personally brought the above portrait of Emily for fear of it getting lost if he shipped it.

Winnie the Pooh in China

Big Frank has been communicating off and on with a Chinese academic who writes about Emily Dickinson, often doing so from a Buddhist or Daoist perspective. Big Frank even published a couple of academic papers on Emily Dickinson and Daoism. The two of them are probably the only two in the world reading Emily Dickinson from a Daoist perspective.

Recently, their exchange of messages has taken a more political bent following the the tense confrontation Taiwan faced from China for hosting Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Big Franks's friend indicated that many in China were advocating that Pelosi's plane should be shot down! This was accompanied in her message with deprecating remarks about our president calling him "Sleepy Joe."

Big Frank recently replied to her on this noting the pervasive censoring of many digital platforms (gmail, Youtube, and Twitter). And Big Frank did a small experiment in sending her a message that included a reference to their President as Winnie the Pooh. The image when meant to refer to Xi Jinping is banned in China. There is an interesting array of such images that have been used in the past. Here are a few.

This is a good place to start. You can see below Xi Jinping and Obama and their counterparts Winnie the Pooh and Tigger.

The next one below show Xi Jinping with the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as Eeyore; particularly apt in both regards to capturing something of each leader.

The last image (see below) is noted on some news sites as the most widely censored photo of 2015: Xi Jinping during a parade and a children's toy car with Winnie the Pooh popping out on top.

"Knee Deep," Paul Beatty, and D'Anjelo

Big Frank is reading a Paul Beatty novel, "Slumberland." He's just getting into it so it's a bit early for him to be weighing in with some kind of eval of it much less a book review. However, one good take-away is the music that is referenced in the novel. The main character, called Darky, creates the perfect beat, moves to Berlin, and searches for the perfect musician to lay down a track for this, who turn out to be one Charles Stone known as the shwa because his tone is upside down, backwards, and unstressed - ⟨ə⟩. In the the second chapter of this book after a riff on having given up studying jazz to become a DJ, Darky then cites the song "Knee Deep" as an example of the ease of getting even an old grandmother to ease out onto the dance floor and "shake her brittle hips and swing her pendulous tits." And THAT is why Big Frank has included the song (see above). It was put out by Jay Morris, K Monique, and Z Brownlow under moniker of The J Morris Group's Z Brownlow.

Then, really only in passing, and keeping in mind that this is 2008, and at the same time that the reader of this novel, yours truly Big Frank Dickinson, is admittedly not really up to date, unlike the city where he currently resides (not Dickinson anymore, but Kansas City where everything is up-to-date), and as a result he had last listened to D'Anjelo some years back and was not even aware that in the interval D'Anjelo had gone through a real rough patch. It was REAL rough - by 2005, D'Angelo's girlfriend had left him, his attorney had become estranged, his manger was gone, and most of his family was out of tough. Then there was a car accident and an arrest on DUI and marijuana possession charges, D'Angelo left Virgin Records in 2005 and checked into the Crossroads Centre rehabilitation clinic in Antigua. Yeah, this dude was on the proverbial slide! OK, keep in mind that it's 2008 in the book and the reference is only one word on one page, and then nothing. Well, Big Frank was not going to leave D'Angelo hanging like that.

Fast forward to ... 2014 and his release of "Black Messiah", his first LP since the 2000 release of Voodoo. From that album here is one song played live in SNL: "Really Love." He is back. Yeah, Big Frank is aware that for all you music aficionados this ain't nothing new, but to Big Frank, it's as though nothing ever really changed because he never knew until today that D'Anjelo had been on rough patch, so his having come back is equivalent (in Big Frank's mind) to his never having left in the first place (sorry D'Anjelo but truth be told that's how it is!). What it is!

Just Go Around It

Just Go Around It by Big Frank Dickinson 

When Big Frank was a kid (yes, he was like everyone - a kid) he made spending money shoveling walks, raking and mowing lawns. A number of years ago, while on a visit back to his old hometown of Dickinson, ND,  Big Frank showed his daughter, Gina, and niece, Julia, one he'd cleared predawn in the NoDak cold. They both thought it was cruel that the owner of that sidewalk, a Doctor, hadn’t invited Big Frank, who was actually at that time only six years old - a Little Frank, in at 20 below zero. See above for  a photo of the girls pretending that they were shoveling snow. The smiles show you it’s all in fun, but way back then when Big Frank was six; it sucked. We walked around town and Big Frank pointed out other homes that he had done chores for when a kid; Big Frank divided them in two: always invited in or not. It was either always or never. Mrs. Clark, always served lemonade with cookies and we sat and ate them together. Her son became a priest and hit on Big Frank's mom. These people, with their big lawyer-moneyed walk, on a corner lot with a double wide driveway, and lots of skinny interior paths only opened the door when asked to pay. Another guy invited Big Frank in more than anyone. I used to mow Dr. Connor's lawn and put on storm windows for him in the fall. He would sit at the kitchen table and look out back at Big Frank working his push mower. His back yard was full of all kinds of stuff and when Big Frank would come on to something like a bike, he would lean out the window and yell: “That’s OK, just mow around it.” His son got in trouble after high school and enlisted to stay out of jail; got sent to Viet Nam and was shot. Big Frank remembers sending him his first letter of condolence that he ever wrote. It was at he Uncle Jack’s in Pennsylvania where Big Frank had been sent to give his mother some peace during the summer of 1968 (that's a story for another time). Uncle Jack offered to help write it, but Big Frank was offended at the offer; and sat down at a desk to write it himself. It was tough going, but he wrote what he knew. Our families had been friends and Big Frank had liked his son, Doug. He threw the wickedest curve ball ever. He could make that ball jump, dance, and zoom inside and out. Nobody could put more stuff on a baseball than he could. So that’s what Big Frank wrote his dad; straight to the point: how he was sorry about his son having gotten shot and how he’d miss him and ended by praising his curve ball saying that it was the best Big Frank had ever seen; and then mailed the note, sure that what had been written was true of what he knew, his loss, and included some praise. But still it seemed such a weak thing to give someone whose son was dead. Big Frank was surprised in the years ahead when that letter was pulled out again and again and as it was read to Big Frank, Dr. Connor would smile, thinking of his son. It was then that Big Frank: knew he hadn’t gone around that one.

Aphorisms!

 Aphorisms to Make you Think

 

Big Frank was recently presented by Magne with a great collection of aphorisms, The Oxford Book of Aphorisms.  As is written on the back:  "This anthology demonstrates to the full how brilliantly the aphorist can illumine the hidden truth, or lay bare the ironies of existence."  Below, Big Frank has selected a few gems that give the reader pause as the hidden truth slowly emerges.

 

"One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead."

Oscar Wilde

 

"Try to arrange your life in such a way that you can afford to be disinterested.  It is the most expensive of all luxuries, and the one best worth having."

W. R. Inge

 

"We discover in ourselves what others hide from us, and we recognize in others what we hide from ourselves."

Vauvenargues

 

"It is so many years before one can believe enough in what one feels even to know what the feeling is." 

W. B. Yeats

 

"Exuberance is beauty."

William Blake

 

"Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love the truth."

Joubert

 

"One keeps saying the same thing, but the fact that one has to say it is eery."

Elias Canetti

 

"Explaining is generally half confessing."

Marquess of Hilifax

 

"Pleasure chews and grinds us."

Montaigne

 

"Happiness is a how, not a what, a talent, not an object."

Herman Hesse

 

"Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love."

Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

"The pleasure of love is loving, and we get more happiness from the passion we feel than from the passion we inspire."

La Rochefoucauld

 

"The offender never pardons."

George Herbert