Living a productive life & Capote's In Cold Blood

What a day! It's around 6 in the afternoon, and I've been lounging in bed all day. I've done absolutely nothing since waking up except lie in my cot fooling around on the internet. I joined up to Bebo, and made up a 'how well do you know me' style quiz. I've been looking at various stuff on YouTube as well, such as clips from Apocalypse Now and some basketball. The only drawback is that I've had nothing to eat except a couple of yoghurts and a lump of bread. I'm just after getting dressed this minute, and now I think I'll go across to the shop and buy some ice-cream. I know, I know, I'm an inspiration to you all...

Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote

Yesterday I added a book to my 2007 list of books: Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Earlier this summer I blogged up a list of all the books I read in 2005, with the 2006 list to follow at some point. I'll publish the 2007 list at some stage next year. It's one of those books I've been meaning to read for a long time. I wanted to read it before I saw that film about Capote that came out recently, so I must rent that out one of these days now that I'm finished. Anyway, the book is a novelised account of a real-life multiple murder that happened in 1959. The novel begins shortly before the murder and ends with the evetual death of the two perpetrators, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. It reminded me of Steinbeck a little, although I'm not sure if that was due to the setting or the writing. Probably a little of both.

Apparently Capote was fascinated by the crime, and he certainly brings the events he's relating to vivid life. He paints an evocative picture of US society and does a great job of getting right inside the skins of each of the characters, even those who are only present for a handful of pages of the book. He also manages to successfully tread a fine line between having some empathy with the killers (particularly Perry Smith), and also emphasising the sheer nastiness and pointlessness of the crime. He manages to draw the events in a way that draws attention to all the contradictions and contingencies of the human experience, so that, for example, it's possible to see Smith as representing all points along a spectrum from cold-hearted, brutal psychopathy to likeable, sympathetic vulnerability.

Killers Perry Smith (top) and Richard Hickock

I believe that Mr. Capote was gay. One thing that I wondered as I read the book was whether Smith and Hickock themselves had some manner of homosexual relationship. They seem to behave like a couple quite a bit, and Hickock has a tendency to call Smith 'honey' when he talks to him. But maybe that was just his way of talking. The book contained a reference to Smith being hassled by 'queers' in the armed forces, all right, but I don't think there were any other overt references to homosexuality. But I wondered if there was a latent current going on there. I'm not for a second suggesting that just because Capote was gay himself, this was all he was able to write about (or think about), or that he was projecting his own sexual identity onto these real-life characters. I just thought that this might have been an undercurrent in the book. I'll probably look into it myself on the interweb at some point.

You wouldn't think I've a thesis to write with all this blogging, novel-reading, internet-browsing, in bed-lying and quiz-making-upping, but I actually have to write 15-20,000 coherent words about International Relations by 6th September. It's a serious struggle. I do put a lot of time into it, and I've a reasonable amount of work done, but I've been finding it extremely slow going. I haven't yet been able to get into any kind of flow with my writing as yet. So far, I've only come up with around 2,000 usable words, and it was an ordeal to squeeze every single one of those out onto the page.

Nonetheless, I actually feel reasonably good about the whole thing. I have a couple of essays that I wrote during the year that I intend to plunder for more wordage, and I'm sticking with my mantra: there's plenty of time... Even though it's almost time to start counting down to the deadline in days instead of weeks... Aaaarghhh...

Plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time plenty of time...

Shaquille O'Neal wins dance-off

I've just signed up to YouTube, and I'm posting a video I came across on my brother's bebo page. It stars 7'1" Shaquille O'Neal, who plays professional basketball for the Miami Heat. At the annual NBA all-star weekend, Shaq took on two other players in a dance-off. It's hilarious...

His first opponent is the talented LeBron James, who came into the league a couple of years ago aged just 19.

Basketball woes

Three posts this year! I'm on a roll. Lightning blogging here...

We lost another basketball game tonight. That's four in a row since Christmas. Before Christmas we were having a great season - we won five and lost two. Similarly to the past few years, most of the teams in the league are around the same standard. Most teams are capable of beating any of the others. The strongest team is probably Rathmines, who have an extremely tall player who is high-scoring. At the end of the year, there are play-offs between the top four teams in the league. We still have a chance to make it that far in the season. Here's the league table.


I play Division 4 basketball with St. Declan's in Cabra. Tonight we were beaten by Ranelagh Fire. The game was quite close in the last quarter. Unfortunately, at that stage I was sitting on the bench. I scored one free throw in the first half. We were down a lot of points at half-time, but we made a comeback, and halfway through the last quarter, we were only losing by eight. By the end of the quarter, we had cut the lead to four points. But in the end, we just weren't able to catch them, as we ran out of time.

After a long break, I’m back to the blog. Why no posts for so long? Basically, because of a general lack of organisation in my life over the last while, and a lack of satisfactory internet access. I have various excuses I could use, such as moving house and stuff like that, but the bottom line is that I didn’t get it together to blog regularly. The new gaff has broadband (it’s broadband that isn’t working, but at least it can be fixed – I hope), and I’m hereby promising to start posting regularly. Not that anybody reads this bloody thing…

Fattening Frogs? What?

The title Fattening Frogs for Snakes refers to a song by the great blues harmonica player, Sonny Boy Williamson II.

Sonny Boy Williamson II

Sonny Boy Williamson II was one of the key figures in the history of the blues. He was born Rice Miller, but stole the name Sonny Boy Williamson from another harp player of the time ('blues harp' or just plain 'harp'=blues slang term for harmonica). They are now known respectively as Sonny Boy Williamson I and II. It is a reasonably regular moniker, in a musical genre characterised by lots of strange names. Some of my favourite blues names off the top of my head include Pinetop Perkins, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lightnin’ Slim and Taj Mahal (who I managed to see live with his Phantom Blues Band - brilliant stuff).

Like many other of the great blues icons, there is a certain amount of confusion about when Sonny Boy II was born. I have even heard that he lied about the year of his birth in order to get the drop on Sonny Boy I in his claim to the name. Sonny Boy II was from Mississippi, and was a virtuoso on the harp. It’s rumoured that he could play with no hands, by inserting the entire harmonica into his mouth or holding it between his top lip and his nose.

One thing that’s interesting about old-time blues lyrics is the way it seems to be the men that are persecuted rather than the women. Blues songs are populated by women who walk all over the long suffering bluesmen, going out late and not coming back home, spending all their man's money, and evicting them from their own homes in the freezing cold (see the Sonny Boy Williamson II track ‘Nine Below Zero’). A good example of this is Sonny Boy’s classic song, ‘Help Me’, which has become a harmonica standard, in which he pleads for help with the housework (seriously):

I may have to wash
I may have to sew
I may have to cook
I might mop the floor
But you help me babe
I can’t do it all by myself
You know if you don't help me darling
I'll find myself somebody else

I was in Bruxelles once when the Mary Stokes Band was playing, and I was very proud of myself when they agreed to play a request of ‘Help Me’. They had just rejected another couple of calls for requests, but I obviously fooled them into thinking I was a blues purist. Then they proceeded to blow me away with a great version of the song. They had the last laugh when I bought their CD.

The song title ‘Fattening Frogs for Snakes’ seemingly refers to an old American proverb about putting loads of energy into something and not reaping the benefits. If you spend ages fattening up a frog with lots of delicacies, and then a big snake slips into his cage and eats him, you’ve pretty much wasted loads of your time and effort. If I had a penny for every frog I lost this way...

My research on Google tells me that ‘Fattening Frogs For Snakes’ was used as the title of a book about the old blues musicians by a fellow called John Sinclair. He compares the years of musical craftsmanship of the Delta blues musicians to fattening frogs for snakes. According to his take on things, these (mostly African American) blues men and women spent years honing their craft, and then suddenly all these white musicians swooped in in the 60s and had huge success by appropriating blues music.

So, the fatted frog was eaten by the snake-like new wave of British musicians – people such as Eric Clapton, John Mayall, The Animals and The Rolling Stones. There’s no doubt that these guys are true fans of the blues, but they did make it big by ripping off the blues stylings of pioneers like Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and Howlin’ Wolf. Lots of these guys died in misery and poverty (although there are plenty more like BB King who got plenty of recognition).

Anyway, that’s the source of my blog title - just in case it seemed a little esoteric…

Tá an chéad post as Gaeilge... (why not!?)

Tar éis a lán smaoineamh, tá socair agam tús a chur ar weblog. Bhí plean agam chun é a dhéanamh, ach táim an-gnóthach go minic, agus bhí mé i gconaí ag cur an smaoin ar an méar fada, mar a deirtear. Rud amháin eile atá i gceist ná an ‘embarrasment factor’ – is dócha nuair a tá tú ag déanamh aon rud poiblí, bíonn tú saghas faiteach faoi (is é ‘faiteach’ focal eile do ‘neirbhíseach’ – is focal nua é domsa: tá an foclóir in aice liom mar nílim i mo cainteoir dúchasach. (Ná bí ina dhiaidh orm maidir le aon botún, le do thoil!!). Bhí mé ag iarraidh an litriú ceart ar neirbhíseach, ach b’fhearr liom an focail faiteach.). Ar aon nós, bhí mé ag smaoineamh nach mbéadh mé chomh cotúil as Gaeilge, mar is iad a lán de mo chairde dall is aineolach don teanga féin… Heh, heh… Amadáin…!! Táim ach ag magadh… Sin an fáth atá mo chéad post as Gaeilge.

Ach freisin, ba mhaith liom postanna a cur suas as Gaeilge anois is arís. Déanaim iarracht caint as Gaeilge chomh minic agus is féidir liom. Mar a tharlaíonn, tá mé ag dul go dtí an Gaeltacht i Gort a’ Choirce, i dTír Chonall i gceann cúpla uair. Tá an Féile Scannáin Faisnéise ar siúl ann, darbh ainm Guth Gafa, so beidh mé ag campáil i nDún na nGall i rith an deireadh seachtaine.

www.guthgafa.com

So, déanaim mo dhícheall do mo theanga féin, mar bhí sé i dtrioblóid mór i rith n blianta. Sa lá atá inniú ann, b’fhéidir go bhfuil níos mó suim ann, le na Gaeilscoileanna is mar sin de, ach deireann daoine fós go bhfuil sé ag fáil báis. Is trua é nach bhfuil sé níos láidir coitianta. Sin an méid don céad post ar mo bhlog ar aon nós…