I am reading The Perfect War. On Amazon they hate it and love it. Vets seem to have dismissed it for credulous, shallow research. Academics were grateful that one of their own stuck his neck out (read "put his career and reputation, both of which were on the short side, up against the wall of silence that met the real history of our engagement with Viet Nam.)
Intuitively I agreed with the title when I found the book in a charity store -- Vietnam was a perfect war. I bought it without reading past the subtitle: "Technowar in Vietnam." It perfected the insanity, the hubris, the tragedy, the wanton destruction, the political impotence, the cultural suicide of all wars and wrapped it in a bright shiny ribbon. Iraq and Afghanistan are roadshow shadows of the real Show of the Century. Vietnam was the longest running war in American history by any measure. It only counted 55,000 dead, but negatively impacted half a million American military and an entire generation of civilians. It was the source of more continuous hours of prime time news coverage than any other war, or news event, or political career, or business or health or any other issue in American life in the last 40 years. It could not have been improved on, as wars go.
A friend of mine who won a purple heart in Nam said the biggest problem for vets, 40 years later, is that they loved and hated the war. And nothing helps them sort it out. I suppose a corrollary is that some who only hated the war, and a few who only loved it, had fewer problems readjusting to life in the world again. But the vast majority of those who served, particularly in combat, came away from the experience with new parts bolted on to their brains, hearts, and memories. Inhuman, in some respects, if you consider "human" to fit within the bounds of civilized values.
I don't, myself.
I think any person is candidate for human status, and humane treatment. Ah, I guess my baptism is showing.
But reading the lucid authoritative and insightful first pages of this book disinters (yes, brings up out of the grave) a growing obsession with Vietnam that peaked for me about 18 months ago, and which I had to bury for a long time.
I did not serve in Viet Nam. But I feel as though I have served the war in Viet Nam throughout my adult life. I call it the Lemma. Not "dilemma" which implies a twofold nature, a conundrum of choice. Lemma. Single. And the name for an ancient shape which is used in one context to denote infinity, another context to denote the path of the sun on the meridian of the International Dateline on globes in schools and libraries around the world.
The single lemma which contains all others. It is a shape like an airplane propeller, or the figure eight. You can start anywhere on the outline and if you move far enough you will have changed direction twice, crossed the center once, which means you will have gone in every direction and taken all sides of the issue represented by the Lemma. Death, evil, virtue, life, creation, destruction. Add Man, Woman, and Infinity and you almost have the rebus of the old television show introduced by Sam Jaffee: Ben Casey, M.D. -- every week during the beginning of Viet Nam's incursion into the American Living Room, Bedroom, and funeral parlor. And from there back out to the baptismal fonts and treatment centers of a staggered nation. In and out. Back and forth. Around and around, but all sides and every direction of every issue.
How does the lemma work as, lets say, the symbol of the legacy of Viet Nam? It isn't a cross carrying an individual conscience to the limit of human sacrifice. It isn't an eye of horus, branding the aeons with the ominous promise of mysteries reserved for a hierophantic caste. It isn't a rose, flesh and generous, ranging from prim to wanton in its phases but always joining the mind to the body indelibly, in time.
26.2.10
I think I am finally starting to get the 20th century...
Give me a minute here. This might be good for you, too.
Now, I know you have wondered what the @%#*&@^ happened in the 20th century. It was like, well, the end of civilization and the beginning of Wii-ocracy. Bridges and principles fall, while small gesture-based gizmos make billions for foreign corporations. And that is the part that is easy to report.
On a larger scale, you had the death of space and time itself. Okay, that is shopping large, I know, but computer viruses can infest the globe in a matter of hours, and speculative markets can crash faster than the speed of sound. In the old days, when history was still interesting, the simple fact of physical distance between two places pretty much resisted the spread of bad things along with the good. There was a viscosity to space, and an insolence to time. They were like teenage kids, you could mobilize them eventually, but it cost you your will to live. So a lot of things just never got off the ground, and that included really bleak things, like tyranny.
Now, I know you have wondered what the @%#*&@^ happened in the 20th century. It was like, well, the end of civilization and the beginning of Wii-ocracy. Bridges and principles fall, while small gesture-based gizmos make billions for foreign corporations. And that is the part that is easy to report.
On a larger scale, you had the death of space and time itself. Okay, that is shopping large, I know, but computer viruses can infest the globe in a matter of hours, and speculative markets can crash faster than the speed of sound. In the old days, when history was still interesting, the simple fact of physical distance between two places pretty much resisted the spread of bad things along with the good. There was a viscosity to space, and an insolence to time. They were like teenage kids, you could mobilize them eventually, but it cost you your will to live. So a lot of things just never got off the ground, and that included really bleak things, like tyranny.
"Faith Healer" at the Guthrie
Brian Friel crafted several emotional arcs into "Faith Healer". I can't decide if there were too many for the close quarters of the play itself, but I think there were too many for the Guthrie cast that essayed the production at the Matinee yesterday.
The oddest thing about the play for me, was the woodeness with which Joe gave us the supposedly charismatic central character. At least for the first extended monologue.
The play itself was an experiment. Even an act of aggression against conventions of play format. It was, finally, four monologues in series. It could have been rearranged. The wife could have started things off with her clenched fist of memory brandished in the face of the crowd, suddenly flowering into a grief and confession that would have pulled tears from a Sony robot. Instead Joe played lead off, palavering and pacing, strewing language on the stage like handfuls of rusty tacks, stale figs and bright glass marbles.
The oddest thing about the play for me, was the woodeness with which Joe gave us the supposedly charismatic central character. At least for the first extended monologue.
The play itself was an experiment. Even an act of aggression against conventions of play format. It was, finally, four monologues in series. It could have been rearranged. The wife could have started things off with her clenched fist of memory brandished in the face of the crowd, suddenly flowering into a grief and confession that would have pulled tears from a Sony robot. Instead Joe played lead off, palavering and pacing, strewing language on the stage like handfuls of rusty tacks, stale figs and bright glass marbles.
Crown Jewels, the face of liberty, caged.
My wire-wrapped coins. A Morgan silver dollar from1888 and a King George V penny from England....1918. The silver dollar is wrapped in gold filled wire, and the penny in sterling silver. It takes me about an hour of work to wrap one coin. Now I need to find out who would wear these things.
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