In Which He Grew Larger Over Time As Do Us All

Partner

by ALEX CARNEVALE

He didn't like school that year. It was more difficult than it should have been, and his new clothes chafed at him. When he came home his parents had an expectant look on their faces. He went to his room, closed the door. It was the ending of a John Updike story, but it was still going on.

He was not the first boy of this sort, whose imagination grew too large for the confines of his little life. His father had played with him as a child, but work grew more time-consuming, and he never saw joy in his father's cheekbones. His mother cut her hair.

Snow came heavy and sogging, getting in his clothes and things. The warmth of fall evaporated. The trees lost their leaves. In the back of his closet, digging for a textbook he'd misplaced the year before, he saw an old-stuffed animal, dirty with the smell of sand and a vacation he found he didn't remember with any clarity. He took it out, never put it back.

A creek a quarter mile from his backyard had frozen over. Despite explicit instructions from his parents and classmate neighbor, he trod on the ice, feeling a growing excitement at the thought of being something larger than himself. After an hour, he went back to his room to look for the stuffed tiger. Not finding it, he searched every room, each nook, each spot worriedly. There, finally, sitting by the curb, was Hobbes.

While he danced on the ice, waiting to fall through and possibly die, Hobbes spun on his vibration, watching him. A dance wasn't silly if someone watched you, a joke was funnier, more perceptive.

Later: he and Hobbes spinning like a galaxy.

He became more and more distracted at school, less interested in what was going on around him. He spent his life in a near constant daydream, imagining the vagaries of entertainment where none could readily be found. Snow was a continuous reminder of the distance between him and everything, in his shoes and bartered clothes, his mother's hand on his neck, writing something at a hard desk, walking with his head down.

The world was tight with a fervor he could not explain, a method that was madness.

He was convinced, finally, that he would remain a little boy forever. When he looked in the mirror, nothing changed, at least nothing he could track. He grew no stronger; he ate, but did not get fat like some adults did. When he and Hobbes went into nature, even their visions were enigmatic, sinister.

Slowly, he learned to ride on the little joys: a burst of fleeting violin, a strike of lightning, a salty manner, a playful and clever trick. He found pleasure in mayhem caused to his neighbor, his parents. Tearing events apart with your fingertips was fulfilling, watching it burn from the inside begat a twisted sense of joy. He could make the world -- others could make the world -- but he could also make the world.

The mind is a bitter friend, he learned, but it was the only one he had. If he could ring in the day this way, if he could craft himself in his own image, drift off in the tiger? Who knows what gleeful horror might unfold.

The world is a cynical, needless place. We have nothing to do to pass the days here but mere amusement. There is no future; there is only the present, hanging by a thread. To see ourselves in others is a great joy, but it is a simple one. Nothing complex survives very long in space.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He tumbls here.

"I'll Take The Long Road" - Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens (mp3)

"Trouble In My Way" - Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens (mp3) highly recommended

"He Knows My Heart" - Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens (mp3)

In Which We Decipher The Consequences of Lady Detecting

Lady Detectives of the 2009 Period

by ALEX CARNEVALE

There has never really been a series like The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, and I doubt there will be in the ensuing years. Perhaps the show will be of such interest to Africa that it will be profitable, but it seems unlikely that such a Western take on life there would work artistically. Really, the show is for the English speaking world, and no matter where it is actually filmed or written, it is a show about how the West views Africa.

That's not a bad thing. It is better we address our perceptions of other races and people directly; it is a hell of a lot better than excluding them or relegating them to sidekick, ancillary roles.

Africa is a terrific setting to disabuse people of such notions, because it explodes our American perceptions of what 'black' is, and shows us a range of characters, some good, some bad. Sure, the stereotypes still flow, but their effect is deadened among such variety.

Botswana was the setting of Alexander McCall Smith's mediocre series of books upon which the movie-length pilot, directed by the deceased legend Anthony Minghella, and the ensuing series is based. But as bleh as the books were, there was always the opportunity for more. The characters and setting offer a multitude of possible stories, whose ultimate resolutions could offer real surprise in their outcomes.

Unfortunately the series isn't as devoted in tweaking our perceptions of the mystery genre as it might be, but that's OK. The real draw are the deep characters and relationships that are unique both to Africa and the West.

Start with the show's protagonist Precious, portrayed by Jill Scott.

The erstwhile R&B singer has never looked better. She's one of the hottest women on television, and since her character Precious is single, the romantic interplay on the show is one of its most exciting elements. Camryn Manheim and Christina Hendricks just get raped on office floors for their trouble, but the fearless Precious should be able to have a much more exciting (and safe) sex life through the course of this show.

The premise is very simple, since the show's creators obviously felt the Botswana setting was enough to get the show's viewers acclimated to. Precious' inspiration, her dear old Daddy, passes away and gives her a substantial number of cows that she sells to move to the city and open a private detective agency.

Her backstory prominently features being raped by her ex-husband and losing her child, so she doesn't exactly escape the curse of the Big Boned, but she's strong as hell.

Precious' morals are a little differently constructed than the majority of TV protagonists. She sometimes lets bad people off the hook and squashes others like bugs without much difference in  their respective moral culpability. It is what substitutes for a different way of thinking in a strange place.

The difficult climate and openness to invaders has turned the beginnings of human civilization into a hard place with a unknown future.You can't help feeling that this is how the West views Africa - constantly unable to decide whether it is best closely monitored or left alone.

Bush gave more money to Africa than Clinton, and we can suspect that our current president, having ancestry in the region, may cause still more money to be spent. Whether this is good or bad is hard to know, but the memories of our inaction in the Sudan still make all people of conscience tremble. Leading intellectuals on both sides of the aisle had trouble calling for action in the dual genocidal cleansing grounds of Kosovo and the Sudan, and while you can respect their lack of appetite to send American troops into places they don't fully understand, it was our moral obligation and duty to prevent the slaughter of innocents.

jill scott & anthony minghellaAlthough this choice is now behind us, it's unlikely that we will not be forced to face it again. It is interesting to watch this show, slanted as it is, and think of what might have been worth saving, and what a more powerful interventionist agenda could have accomplished. The Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency is a rough allegory for the potential success of such policy-making.

The Botswana of The Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency is in some ways modern and prosperous, but in other ways it lacks a rule of law we take for granted here in the States. Coming from a decrepit small village to the busier metropolis, Precious sticks out like a round thumb. She finds herself hiring the number one graduate of the local secretarial school, puts off the sloppy advances of a local mechanic, and generally makes her way in the world.

The world is Botswana, a Democratic republic with a strong government whose behavior with respect to the local diamond industry has been a model for other nations with similar resources. Still, for the Western observer, Botswana is a stark place, more brush and dirt, landlocked and dry to the touch. They call everyone by sweet familiars, and they bake in the heat. It is no wonder that life here was harder for its residents, warm as it is.

The cars, the dress, and the landscape is more familiar than foreign. It is Africa remade as the United States of the 1960s, in fact: a hilarious gay friend, an old, rattling car, a floral printed shirt. It is difficult to fashion a mystery in the post-information age, but information in the Botswana (of this show at least) is harder to come by.

Parts of the show are conventional, even boringly so, but other parts offer a freshness of vision. There is a simple delight in watching a mechanic's mischievous employees dance around before singing him Happy Birthday, or the agency's youngest employee, Wellington, scampering around to hand out fliers. It is a part of the message: that it is about living together, or dying alone.

Botswana is a nice model, and a safer place than most in the third world. The challenges that less fortunate peoples face in Africa are numerous, and the problems of disease and malnutrition in the people, and disease and corruption in the government loom large. Ultimately, this is a place in the world where we can make a difference by helping citizens rather than government. And that is sort of the point of any well-meaning detective agency, isn't it?

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He tumbles it all here.

"Atlantis to Interzone (Black Sessions version)" - Klaxons (mp3)

"The Bouncer (Black Sessions version)" - Klaxons (mp3)

"Two Receivers (Black Sessions version)" - Klaxons (mp3)

In Which It Was A Week of Biblical Proportions

The Week in Review

A crowded train is the center of empathy for a lost world. Mere years ago the New York-Boston Amtrak corridor was the nation's greatest singles bar. Even if you were married, it was a meeting ground for freaks and pushers, Catholics and castradas. You never had to worry about buying drugs for travel; they had them in the cafe car.

• Alex broke down the best of SF writer Poul Anderson.
• Yvonne's awesome adventure in stock photography.
• Sex with Christians hurts a lot.

Once I met a childless Washington-based couple who felt like the church kids were theirs, too. They never could conceive. I gave them as much of myself as I was able. Jesus I was cute as a button in 2002, why didn't I realize it?

• David Foster Wallace trashed John Updike.
• Lambert analyzed what bands in fact SMELL like.
• Yvonne visited Ruben in his elevator where he spends his time.

On a crowded train you can meet anyone, hear a sob story that would make Oprah ovulate with jealousy. The proliferation of cell phones opened up new spheres for the budding Pollyannas of this generation. Lives would be shared, no permission required.

• Events spiralled way of control for our tastes. Chaos!
• Kathryn held a lot of envy in her heart for Jonathan Franzen's success.
• An excerpt from Mathias Svalina's Play.

Train travel is the partial inspiration for Bret Easton Ellis' The Informers, it's where they decide to execute each others' Kill Lists on Strangers On A Train. The subway, costing 2 exruciating dollars, offers little of this satisfaction. It is like picking through still black and white photographs: Amtrak's in technicolor. For what they charge, it should be.

• Kill lists are difficult to maintain and execute.
• Alex broke down the greatest movie of the 1990s.
• Tyler was amused by so very much.

A government-run mass transit system is the most inefficient business besides Newsweek Magazine. They never should have built these rails, which sit fallow and empty at prices few except the very rich can afford. No wonder the train's denizens are a self-satisfied bunch. For years I rode mostly at night, wherre the weeping throes of colege students filled each car, hormones flooding through the central air conditioning, businessmen drunk from the mere thrill of being douchebags.

• Molly discussed the results of American Idol.
• Karina tackled the legacy of Tennessee Williams.
• Chad investigating the meaning of National Lampoon's Vacation.

The rails are now more sedate. 

"Infinity Guitars" - Sleigh Bells (mp3)

"At The Beach" - Sleigh Bells (mp3)

"Ring Ring" - Sleigh Bells (mp3)