back page: blood meridian or the evening redness in the west

xii.

blood meridian or the evening redness in the west by cormac mccarthy**

12/27/07
according to bauercount.com, jack bauer, the protagonist of 24, has killed 185 people over the course of six seasons. yet the glanton gang of mccarthy's blood meridian could teach bauer some things about killing; they eclipse this feat without the benefit of automatic weapons, and because mccarthy writes so matter-of-factly of violence and brutality (not because of the sheer number of murders), these indian scalpers make bauer seem like a harmless saint nick. biblical commentators speak of the earth groaning as it awaits the expulsion of darkness, and no novel offers a grimmer account of the pulsing menace of humanity (and our complicity with satan and, for that matter, nature) than blood meridian (not even the road). read it if you dare.

14 out of 17*

*the 17 point scale panel of experts--andrew, andrew, andrew, andrew, andrew, andrew, andrew, andrew, andrew, andrew, andrew, andrew, andrew, andrew, andrew, andrew, and, yes, andrew--rated blood meridian between 13 and 16 and have yet to formally declare their rating tried and true. they still have some thinking to do.

**i think the cormac mccarthy lemonade is flooding hollywood. i just read that ridley scott will be directing blood meridian. i can't imagine how this could be filmed tastefully yet with profundity. do dark, dark, bloody epics translate well to film?

a pg-13 post [1]

in an ideal world, i would subscribe to the seattle times. i would be a vital instrument in the resurrection of print media. i'd have stacks and stacks of papers, everywhere. my paper buying ways would make my girlfriend and her advertising clients very happy.

one day she'd walk into my living room and sigh. it would be a pleasant, homecoming kind of sigh. a (how nice to finally be home for) christmas sigh. i might be tinkering with chords on my goodwill piano or vigorously brushing my teeth as i check espn scores or building oragami barnyard animals in our fashionable kitchen nook, but that sigh would send a lightening bolt through the universe. my piano would squak and die (finally, graciously). that nameless cross between toothpaste and spittle would shower my laptop in neon blue. the barnyard animals would lose their legs.

i'm not being overly dramatic, christmas sighs don't belong here. as you may know, beth and i have been recouping from the gre by watching the second season of 24. the constant battle in this endeavor is between my HUGE tv and her NICE house. i always rally for the tv and beth always rallies for the house. you see, even without the hypothetical newspaper piles, my house is a state-registered bachelor pad, a hop-skotch course of dishes, cookies, and clothes. and brown carpet, ugly brown carpet.

still, this lazy summer sigh tells me that a newspaper subscription would change all that. beth would walk into my living room and remember...

[i'm sleepy, so this is to be continued...]

andrew david 'sunset at the intersection of the present and the prehistoric.' puerto vallarta, mexico.

holy week, days #5 and#6

today was maundy thursday. i thought everyone should know. i hope to reply to comments and continue this post later tonight...

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now it's early good friday, about 12:32am, but despite the return of my wayward internet connection, there will be no holy week post. i'm tired and cranky.

for the past hour sirens have been screaming through my neighborhood. this isn't particularly unusual--i live by aurora--except that the sirens have been a mixed chorus of emergency sirens and ordinary car alarms. then, about twenty minutes ago the sirens stopped and a helicopter or two appeared on the scene. they have been circling my block since at least 12:20am. the copter comes so close to my house that i can hear the blades beating the air. it sounds like a high-pitched hybrid of lawn-mower and jet plane. from my bedroom window, the helicopter looks like a bright-eyed christmas wraith. its shadowy paint job makes all but the red and green navigation lights fade ominously into the night sky. curious, i roll out of my toasty bed and out onto the chilly porch. the street looks dark...and normal. the helicopter makes another approach. at first i thought that it must be nothing, but now i'm a little worried. i retreat back to my bed and double-lock the door.

it's 12:57am. a few weeks worth of watching the hit tv series '24' has all kinds of crazy theories buzzing through my brain. i check out the local news stations -- just your standard fare: shootings over shoes, car accidents, rapists and a kidnappers loose on the streets. whoah. i briefly entertain the thought of calling beth and telling her to be on guard. then i think, 'it's nearly 1am, she'll be asleep,' and 'then she'll be needlessly paranoid for weeks,' and 'heck, i doubt she could be sleeping with this racket. she'll probably in her living room waiting out the excitement by groggily sipping english breakfast tea with her roommates. agg. the motion-sensing light outside my window just turned on...uh-oh.....


andrew david '?' puerto vallarta, mexico - first off, the middle picture is the original (i made a few minor adjustments, but that's what the photo subject really looked like) and the washed-out versions are photoshop creations. second, i'm not quite sure what to call this...depending upon the context i think several themes could offer appropriate titles: christ's crucifixion (or in this trio of pics, the crucifixion of christ AND the two thieves), a horrible ending to this evening's random helicopter fly-bys, or something more general like laughing, singing, screaming, yawning, anger...i'm not sure, i was actually planning to write an entire entry on this, but some knucklehead's heli-joyride got in the way.

okay, it's 1:06am. and just like that, the helicopter is gone. all is quiet. good night.