Rand and rand the Olympic track

Olympic Ayn Rant # 3: The American Anthem

I AM a big fan of political and corporate leaders aligning themselves with arts and literature to the merriment of the general public.

London Louie B. Mayor Boris Johnson did a fine job of commissioning a modern version of the Olympic victory ode. In the spirit of the great producer-performers of the past, Johnson even recited the piece of doggerel himself. A world-wide audience laughed at the ode and its inevitable spoofs.

These delicious moments are far too rare, usually because of an over-educated junior, on the public or private patrol, who objects, ‘You can’t do that.’ Fortuitously, it is from one of these spoiler interventions that we are able to bring the American Games Anthem, as fresh as fresh as Daisy Duck, as thematic of the London 2012 international extravaganza.

American president-elect Ronald Reagan wanted this song performed at his 1981 inauguration. A junior fun-killer declared, ‘You can’t do that.’

Before the launch of the American National Anthem, we need to introduce the patron of the US team. It has to be Ayn Rand.

Ayn Rand in training for the Mind Games

The Russian emigrant is a sublime example, of the United States immigrant made good, which has inspired generations of achievers on and off the sporting field.

Like many a heroic role model, dripping fame and wealth, Rand had to overcome adversity hiding beneath the rungs of the ladder of success. Indeed, her first visit to the US almost robbed that nation of the privilege of hosting one of the great philosophical minds of the 20the century.

In the autumn of 1925, Rand first stepped on American soil. Overcome by the splendour of the Manhattan skyline, she burst into tears. A New Yorker, thinking she was distressed, put a gentle hand on her shoulder and asked what was the matter.

Rand was a committed pacifist but she was confused and she kneed the stranger, Al Trooism, in the groin. Police interviews with the two parties would determine the future of Rand and the intellectual life of the United States.

The budding philosopher told the authorities Trooism’s interference dismayed her. ‘I did not want him trying to help me; his attempt at help made me nauseous,' the police notebook read. For his part, Altrooism declined to lay charges.

Today, no one knows anything about Al Trooism, while many New Yorkers greatly admire the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

On a more practical note, I believe her patronage will give America a head start at the inaugural Ayn Rand Olympic Games, set to come in after the next Global Financial Crisis.

At the fiscally responsible Rand Olympics, all team sports will be eliminated. There will be no relay events and no such things and doubles and triples in the rowing. The atavistic Opening Ceremony, with its sickening coming together of previously noble individuals, will be canned.

Of course, the glorious closing ceremony will be spared but it will be much shortened. Before the gates are open to the public, all the athletes will have gathered in the centre of the stadium. In the unforgettable ceremony, the rabble will disperse into a line of heroic individual athletes. A blonde blue-eyed javelin throw will recite explanations of Rand’s political philosophy, known as fuckupal. The banjo, moonshine jig, chainsaw, rifle and Bible-bashing Tea Party Symphony orchestra will play excerpts from Wagner’s The Ring Cycle.

It will be the best Olympics the modern world has known.

After discussion of this future opus, it seems almost prosaic to introduce the American National London Olympics 2012 Anthem. Nonetheless be ready to upload this classic every time an American athlete wins a medal.

Little known Olympic fact number 2

Philip Morris Atlas was a judge in track and field at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

Injury prone British athlete Derek Redmond looked in good shape for the 400m at the Spanish Games.

He posted the fastest time of the first heats and won his quarter-final.

In the semi-final, Redmond was going well until he hit the back straight and did a hamstring.

He fell to the ground in agony but struggled to his feet when he saw stretcher bearers coming for him.

 The finish line was 250m down the track and Redmond hobbled towards it. 

His father Jim Redmond burst from the stands to help his son. Derek Redmond leaned on his father’s shoulder and they made it the line, the cheers and applause of 65,000 spectators, ringing in their ears.

Chief judge Philip Morris Atlas turned to his junior and said, ‘That’s incredible.’ Wiping away a tear, the junior judge agreed. 

Atlas went on. ‘How dare that man try to set back the spirit and rules of the Olympic Games by helping that athlete across the line? Mark Derek Redmond down as DNF.

The junior judge could not believe it. ‘You are going to reward an inspirational act of altruism with a did not finish.’

Atlas shrugged.

Barbaric threat to modern civilisation

Bernie Dowling, July 27, 2012.

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Mad Mayor forgets it is all Greek

Olympic Rant #2: The London Games Anthem

WE all might worry about the London Lord Mayor’s insistence on an Olympic anthem in the style of an ancient Greek ode if we did not know Boris Johnson is a total loop-de-loop.

The  Mad Mayor of London

Johnson delivered his first over-the-top serving of a  of a Pindaric Ode for the London Games  — in ancient Greek, no less — at an Olympic shebang at the Royal Opera House  in Covent Garden on Monday night.

Pindar was an ancient Greek lyric poet who dished out Olympic victory odes.

An early Pindaric effort set the theme: ‘Let us not proclaim any contest greater than Olympia. From there glorious song enfolds the wisdom of poets.'

Conservative Johnson and I have little in common but we do make a living through the use of words.

The Mayor moonlights as a columnist for The Daily Telegraph. I am moonlighting, after my day job as a reporter, on these election rants from the edge of the city and the jaws of hell.

In a July 2009 interview Johnson referred to his Tele salary as ``chicken-feed’’. His poultry payment each year was 250,000 GBP. That is 320,000 euro, 387, 000 USD and 376, 000 AUD.

In 2009, in the midst of the Global Financial Crisis, Boris Johnson, future Olympic Hero, declared such sums chicken feed.

For these rants I receive 0 GBP, 0 euro, 0 ISD and 0 AUD and I have a retired racing pigeon to feed. Several months back, the pigeon landed on our back veranda, with indecipherable plastic identification tags on its lower legs and sought asylum from competitive sports. Racing pigeons – even retired ones – do not live on chicken feed. Compounding the expense, the bird, having shunned competition, now allows, without any fuss, wild birds to share its food, my food, actually.

At first I thought the pigeon – which we named Pigeon, with Birdie as its nickname – had turned Buddhist. I was quickly disabused of this notion when I brought home a copy of one of the two newspapers from which I earn my living. I started to read the paper when Pigeon viciously clawed the open pages with both feet. I looked down to see Birdie’s food bowl was empty. Pigeon has done a similar thing on other occasions when I read one of our papers. It is official: I am working for pigeon feed.

I am not saying I am as good a journo as Boris Johnson but I wish I had lucked into his lark of Pindaric verse rather than sharing his unruly hairstyle. 

What I have in common with Johnson are  journalism and unruly hair

The Opera House punters broke into rapturous applause when Johnson spruiked in ancient Greek accompanied by English translation on computerised screens. The neo-ode starts

This new Olympic flame behold,

that once burned bright in Greece of old;

with happy hearts receive once more

these Games revived on London's shore.

Who knew you could garner kudos from doggerel if you tied it to the classics. Me, I am more into the Clash than the classics and every daughter and son of Heroic London must join me there. The Clash provides the English National Games Anthem.

Whenever an English athlete wins a medal, the anthem must be played. Tech-heads will synchronise it with their internet coverage of the Games. I am hoping the most sophisticated will be able to tap into that other British antthem and replace it after a couple of bars. God Save the Queen is fine for hundreds of other occasions but the London Olympics 2012 deserve something special.

London becomes the first city to host three Olympic Games. I am hoping the head of the IOC will introduce London 2012 as the Greedy Games in honour of the thousands of cities which have never hosted one. I suspect it will not happen so I will have to be content with the special games anthem.

Little Known Olympic Fact #1

The first Asian Summer Olympic Games were to be held in Tokyo in 1940.

They were called off because the world was at war.

Norwegian athlete William Risterspyd and his supporters declared the Tokyo Games should go ahead with the neutral countries competing.

The authorities quickly decided this proposal was absurd but the stubborn. Risterspyd, a discus thrower, was adamant. He and his supporters set up a tent in Helsinki’s Market Square for the entire period the Tokyo Summer Games were scheduled for. It did not matter that it was winter in Norway.

Every few hours, Risterspyd supporters cleared people from the centre of the squares so the athlete could show off his discus prowess.

A jubilant Risterspyd linked his protest to the Summer Games when he gave a press conference to international reporters who flocked to the square on the third day of the protest.

‘Now is the winter of our discustent made glorious summer,’ he said.

Bernie Dowling, July 24, 2012.


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Gonzoid rants on the London Olympics 2012

Olympic Rant  #1 The Patron

THESE Olympic reports are written from the edge of the city and the jaws of hell.

The city in question is Brisbane where, as in all fair cities of Australia, good drug and  alcohol-fuelled citizens are regularly bashing one another senseless, and occasionally lifeless.  Friday and Saturday nights are the preferred times for  such mayhem but any warm or cool enchanted evening will do.

I am confident the industrious denizens of the western world’s capital cities are similar indulging in random violence to share the terror of life in war zones.

This is why these reports on the noble Olympic games are writ from the jaws of hell. Our patron for the Capital-G Games  is Thomas Hobbes.

London Games Patron

Before we introduce our patron to the enthusiastic international audience we should satisfy ourselves that we indeed live in violent times. Over a long period in journalism I have seen the reality of falling crime rates go hand-in-hand with public perceptions of their increase . Some politicians and sections of the media love to play the crime card: a fearful population are an impressionable lot.

I believe  the perception of violent crime today matches the reality. For a long time, I have toyed with the notion that times of war and lauded militarism create parallel violence in civilian populations.  My days of meandering through the halls of higher learning are long gone but I would like a phD student test my  theory in a thesis.  What the civilian ‘Libyan “liberators”, of the  National Transitional Council, the Gonzoid rants on the London Olympics 2012.

WARNING: This video has been identified as potentially offensive or inappropriate by some viewers.

Most of the assailants appear to be unarmed civilians watched by gun toters in military-style dress.

http://www.youtube.com/verify_controversy?next_url=/watch%3Fv%3DyAB6aYDnu1k

This was an inauspicious start for Libyan democracy.

Meet our patron

Thomas  Hobbes  is a 17^th century English philosopher. I say ``is’’ as Tough Tom  is alive in many people’s heads.

Hobbes wrote that you should bash people long and hard before they have a chance to fuck you over. Hobbes went on that, in a sophisticated society, the State could do  the pre-emptive bashing on your behalf. He wrote these things  in my version of his book Leviathan. My version only exists in my head but you can download  another edition here http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3207

The Religious Right owe a great debt to Hobbes. This is why they like to shooy at things while they spread the a-Hobbesian gospel of the free market.

You can see why Thomas Hobbes is an excellent patron for the London Olympics 2012. 

In rant #2, we introduce the Games national anthems of England, the United States and Australia.

Olympic shorts

GREATER London 16-year-old Mahamed Awale recently tweeted: USAIN BOLT IZ A V GD FRIEND OF MINE HIM BCOMIN A RUNNA WOZ MA IDEA.

I don’t know that time line and geographic distance pans out to validate Awale’s contention.

But Mahamed was kicked off one of those reality TV shows in the first round. Being booted first-up from the BBC Series2 of  Young Apprentice gives the lad a lot of cred in my book.

THIS reminds me of when I covered the final Goodwill Games in Brisbane in 2001.

American Ted Turner began the Goodwill Games in Moscow  in 1986 in response to the politicisation of the Olympics after the 1979 Russian invasion of Afghanistan.

The games were bought from Ted Turner by Time Warner when Turner's company merged with TW in 1986. TW promised to keep the Goodwill Games alive

The corporation descended from Warner Bros which brought the world, hungry for justice, John Wayne movies. That lineage was interested in namby-pamby sports détente and they canned the games when ratings tanked in America.

At the final Brisbane Games I interviewed reigning  Olympic 100m champion American Maurice Greene who broke down in Goodwill Games preparation and did not compete.

It was at the Goodwill Games that I suggested Greene become a runner. No, wait, that cannot be right. I suggested, as he wasn’t competing at the Games, we go to Brisbane’s best Chinese restaurant and do a runner before the bill came. Maurice declined.

THE Olympic Gold medals and memorabilia of  Australia’s first ever double Olympic Medal winner Bobby Pearce (1905-1976), will be auctioned at Bonhams Olympic Games Sale on 25 July 2012. The Olympic Games sale will be held at Bonhams Knightsbridge, London, saleroom in case you  wish to pop down. that way.

Rower Pearce went to the Amsterdam 1928 Games and won the Gold from American entrant Kenneth Myers who was said to be so disgusted that he smashed his boat.

 Pearce won skulls gold again at the Los Angeles Olympiad in 1932.

Pearce’s Olympic Gold stuff is expected to fetch  £30,000 – 50,000 ($44,000 - $73,000 AUD and much the same in US dollars). I have Maurice Greene's autograph on an Goodwill Games cap if the under-bidder is interested.

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7 Shouts at Google eBooks 

http://books.google.com.au/books/about/7_Shouts.html?id=Hhc8bMEEzJIC&redir_esc=y

7 Shouts at Amazon 

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=7+Shouts

Bernie Dowling, July 23, 2012.

The Maltese Falcon: classic book review

The Maltese Falcon: classic book review

Falcon strikes magnificently

At Google Books http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Maltese_Falcon.html?id=yfJlaMBMFEMC&redir_esc=y

At Amazon http://www.amazon.com/The-Maltese-Falcon-Dashiell-Hammett/dp/0679722645

The large print version from GALE CENGAGE Learning which has a better cover than the other version is not listed on the publisher’s current catalogue.

MANY of those familiar with the title The Maltese Falcon may be acquainted with the 1941 film noir rather than Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel published by Alfred A. Knopf.

There is a remarkable synergy between novel and film, perhaps without parallel in such translations.

Writer/ director John Huston wrote the script to closely follow the order of the novel, retained much of the dialogue and then filmed it in sequence.

He even persuaded the censors to let him keep the recurring motif of hard liquor. No objection was raised to the continual prop of hand-rolled cigarettes.

Huston self-censored to remove most of the key homosexual references in the novel but the character of Joel Cairo (played by Peter Lorre) would have left sophisticated viewers to clearly see the elephant in the room.

Many readers are disconsolate when a favourite novel is translated onto the screen.

In this case, seeing the film enhances the novel as the reader can have the authentic dialogue being voiced in their mind by actors Humphrey Bogart, Sidney Greenstreet, Lorre, Mary Astor, Gladys George and Elisha Cook Jnr.

Although neither was a prolific writer, Hammett and Raymond Chandler, after him, were the fathers of the hard-boiled detective novels translated into 1940 film noir.

It may surprise some that both authors have been recognised as great writers, not just as doyens of their genre. I do not believe any of the current crop of superstars of the detective thriller will garner such recognition in the future. In1998, the Modern Library ranked The Maltese Falcon 56th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

Hammett and Chandler had similar histories which could partly explain their emergence as writers of edgy fiction. As young men in World War 1, both suffered debilitating injuries, the effects of which remained with them for the rest of their lives. They reached the peaks of their writing careers during the Great Depression of the 1930s which followed the decade of post-war licence hailed as the Roaring 20s.

The plot of The Maltese Falcon evolves from the murder of private detective Miles Archer, the business partner of the novel’s protagonist Samuel Spade. The story is written in the third person with virtually no interior monologues yet the reader identifies with the subjectivity of the flawed character of Sam Spade.

What makes this novel good are the spare style and the clipped dialogue – tougher than Chandler’s though not as funny.

What makes the novel great is the extraordinary way the author uses detailed character descriptions and dialogue to render the story without any back-up of interior reflection or self-justification. Spade’s moral ambiguity is a magnificent theme and device upon which to pin suspense.

The reader learns early on that Spade has been having an emotionless sexual affair with his dead partner’s wife, Iva. The shamus grumbles to his loyal secretary, Effie Perine, ‘I never know what to do or say to women except that way.’

Don’t go retro-reading that as some kind of prescient observation by Hammett on the male inability to commit. The author is merely laying the ground to prove Gutman’s assessment of Spade that we never know what he is going to do or say next.

Homosexuality is central to the novel though it does not have as many echoes of homophobia as it often does with Chandler.

Let’s start with the least clear-cut example of secretary, Effie Perine, who lives at home with her mother. Effie appears to have a woman crush on femme fatale Brigid O’Shaughnessy, who, in the manner of the genre, has to be Spade’s love interest. As I say, the hint at lesbianism is subtle and possibly unintended, but look for the fascinating reactions of Perine in the last pages of the novel.

Joel Cairo is obviously homosexual as delightfully rendered in an exchange with the perhaps promiscuous O’Shaughnessy. (Cairo) ’Exactly, and shall we add the boy outside?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed and laughed. ‘Yes, unless he’s the one you had in Constantinople.’

Sudden blood mottled Cairo’s face. In a shrill enraged voice he cried: ’The one you couldn’t make.’…

The sinister urbane Casper Gutman has a daughter but he appears to be bi-sexual.

In the lengthy and wonderful denouement, at midnight, Spade unwillingly hosts Gutman, Cairo, O’Shaughnessy and the seemingly psychotic young gunman, Wilmer Cook, mostly referred to in the novel as “the boy”..

…’That daughter of yours (Gutman’s) has a nice belly,’ he (Spade) said, ‘too nice to be scratched up with pins.’ Gutman’s smile was affable if a bit oily

The boy in the doorway took a short step forward, raising his pistol as far as his hip. Everybody in the room looked at him. In the dissimilar eyes with which Brigid O’Shaughnessy and Joel Cairo there was, oddly, something identically reproving. The boy blushed…

Hammett tells us, purely though actions and facial expressions, that O’Shaughnessy, Cairo and probably Gutman are jealous of the boy’s infatuation with Gutman’s daughter Rhea.

Besides killing people, that boy has been busy and mental derangement has not impaired his youthful sexual attractiveness.

If there is one flaw in this almost faultless novel it is the characterysation of Brigid O’Shaughnessy. While this has much to do with the structural imperative of mystery and suspense, O’Shaughnessy lacks the sensuality of  Vivian Sternwood in Chandler’s The Big Sleep.

That quibble aside, The Maltese Falcon dispels the ignorant snobbish and vicious myth that a genre novel cannot be counted as great literature.

-Review by Bernie Dowling

Gooseberry Lays and Gunzels

CENSORS and censorship are often good for a laugh.

The Maltese Falcon first appeared serialised in the pulp fiction mag Black Mask.

Magazine editor Joseph Shaw was offended by vulgarity and he took exception to the term “goose-berry lay’’ in The Maltese Falcon.

…Then Spade asked (the boy) pleasantly: ‘How long have you been off the goose-berry lay, son?’

You could hardly blame puritanical editor Shaw; the phrase sounds scatological. However, it was a slang term for stealing clothes from a line to sell them with the culprit perhaps lying among gooseberry bushes before the theft.

One word Shaw had no objection to was gunzel. In fact the editor loved its use in the novel.

…’Keep that gunzel (the boy, again) away from me while you’re making up your mind. I’ll kill him. I don’t like him. He makes me nervous.’

Shaw thought gunzel meant hired gun and a host of Hammett imitators used it in that sense.

Gunzel actually meant a boy or young man paid or kept for sex, a rent boy.

Both expressions gunzel and goose-berry lay survive in the latest editions of The Maltese Falcon.

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7 Shouts Google 

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7 Shouts Amazon

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Does anyone do the viz anymore?

BERNIE’S Best Bet - our fun Twitter tipping service – selects Dash for Viz at lovely Flemington racetrack in Melbourne today.

Dash for Viz is a a 5-year-old gelding by Dash for Cash out of Miss Academic.

The horse is splendidly named, as Dash for Viz  meets the sublime naming criterion of reflecting the monikers of sire and dam.

Viz dashes

Dash for Viz is by the mare Miss Academic and the name reminds me of my days in halls of higher learning.

Academics would dash towards a Latin phrase or word when an English equivalent just would not do. Latin abbreviations were gold.

Entering university, I had barely come to terms with Agatha Christie’s pesky Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and his annoying habit of peppering his speech with French mots. Incroyable!

Reading academic texts, I now had to grapple with a new set of odd expressions, viz words such as viz.

The word crept into the English language in the 16^th century.

Viz is the abbreviation of the Latin word videlicit, which means ”namely’’.

The British hoi-poloi long ago punted viz from their everyday lingo. This was as good a reason as any for the academics to hang on to it as a mark of respect for their esoteric knowledge.
            You may recall some of the other favourite Latin shorts: ibid, op cit, et al.

The academics when citing some of their fellow travellers would list authors in the fashion of Dot Kansas, Red Ragger et al.

Et al stood for “and others”. I always wondered if this was done to save space or to tell the reader the als were not of any importance. I would have been offended if I was an al.

Contemporary uni students should be able to tell us whether academics do viz anymore. If the academics have ditched it, we commoners should consider reclaiming it.

‘I am having lunch with the girls today, viz Trudy, Judy, Lucy and Pippa.'

Or ‘I’m having lunch with the girls today, viz smoked salmon and mango jus.’

There is nothing wrong with a dash for viz, as long as we do not all do it at once.

Here is our celebratory song to complement the name Miss Academic

SCHOOL SONG

Je m'apelle a winner babe

Our best bet for Australia today is Glaneuse, a 6-year-old gelding by Blevic out of the mare Qu'Appelle.

Qu'Appelle. is French for What’s your Name  and is also the name of a Canadian village.

French artist Jean-François Millet (October 4, 1814 – January 20, 1875) painted the famous Les Glaneuses or The Gleaners oil-on-canvas in 1857.

Les Galneuses

Glaneuses were women who collected fruit or vegetables left on the ground during harvesting,

In Millet’s painting the women are collecting corn.

Today we can eat corn or cake or caviare or whatever we like. Today’s the day we take the bookies to the gleaners.

On a sadder note, South Australian sire Blevic died this week, aged 20.

Blevic never sired a champion horse but, In his sixteen seasons he served 1218 mares with his fertility rate more than 90 per cent. He obviously had a bit of fun.

He is the sire of 331 winners including stakes performers Moudre,, Shewan, Exalted Ego, Under The Bridge and Exalted Lad.