Somebody’s going to emergency, somebody’s going to gaol

Well, if you’re looking for further signs that civilization is going to hell in a handbasket, I have a doozy for you.

Black Friday, it seems, is spreading beyond the borders of these United States.

And by Black Friday I’m referring not only to retailers advertising “deals” on their merchandise, but consumers acting like complete pillocks in the pursuit of these alleged bargains.

Viz.: Stories out of the UK are documenting the kinds of chaos and mayhem that we’ve experienced since the Cabbage Patch days. Yes, I’m talking grown humanoids engaging in knock-down-drag-outs over limited numbers of goods that are marked up only 135% instead of the normal 150% during “special” operating hours.

There was the whole build-up, with people mobbing outside various establishments in hopes of being the first through the door to get…whatever it is that’s worth waiting for half the night outside a store in late November. (In my mind, this would be…nothing; but I recognize that if the economy depended on my purchasing habits, we’d be in even deeper trouble than we are now.)

And local police and EMTs have been in overdrive, dealing with the mayhem and maiming. So I’m thinking that I’d add Black Friday to Remembrance Sunday on my list of Best Times to Knock Over a Liquor Store in Britain, since every cop in the country is engaged elsewhere and I’d be pretty well assured of a clean getaway.

But speaking of criminal stupidity, I got rather a kick out of this guy in The Guardian’s report from a North London Sainsbury’s: Andy Blackett, 30, had two carts full of merchandise. “I got two coffee makers, two tablets, two TVs and a stereo,” he said. “I couldn’t tell you the prices, but I know they’re bargains.”

Our financial master of the universe is—wait for it—a real estate agent.

His apparently small pal had the TV he’d bagged taken from him by someone bigger. Law of the retail jungle, baby.

(Well, it just occurred to me that Blackett may have plans of selling his swag on Craig’s List, or eBay. So maybe not as idiotic as I’d originally thought. His pal is still stuffed, though.)

At least he wasn’t arrested and didn’t require medical treatment, which was how the day started and ended for a number of people around the country.

And—okay—he also didn’t end up with an overpriced vacuum cleaner, like another shopper interviewed. She’d been unable to get the high-end electronics she’d come after, so she was standing there with a Dyson. There’s some kind of poetic something surrounding that, but I’ll be blowed if I know what it is.

Poor old Mother England—so eager to show moral and cultural superiority over our crass, money-grubbing American hegemony. And they end up importing something that only makes (limited) sense in the context of the day-after-Thanksgiving signaling the start of the Christmas shopping season. It seems bizarre that as we’re losing that context here, the Brits latch onto it and make it every bit as grubbily theirs as it used to be ours.

And, oh—you don’t believe me about the fights? Take a look, sunshine. Not so merry-old, eh?

Oh—but this is probably a windup:

Clouds on the horizon

On Friday of Thanksgiving week, I’m grateful that—occasionally, when the atmosphere has the temerity to formulate a few clouds in the early morning—you can actually see a gorgeous sunrise here in the Valley They Call Silicon.

Because you need clouds to refract the light to get really beautiful sunrises or sunsets. Without the clouds, darkness just morphs into light and vice versa.

And that’s as good a way as any to close out this week.

The Baroness of Holland Park

One of my early heroes of detective fiction has died. P.D. James was 94 and had amassed multiple honors for her highly successful novels, most featuring policeman-poet Adam Dalgliesh.

I didn’t find her stories entirely comfortable; they were heavily laced with psychopathology, and so many of the characters were so disagreeable that I really wanted to throttle most of them and toss them in roadside ditches. But I admired James’s ability to craft a story and provide a compelling atmosphere, whether it be in a hospital, a publishing house, a nuclear power plant or a monastery.

James did not start publishing until she was in her forties, after a career as a civil servant, and raising her family. I really like that notion, of the second act being writing.

I confess that I thought she jumped the shark a bit when she wrote Death Comes to Pemberley in 2011. It tosses characters from Pride and Prejudice into a murder mystery, which I didn’t find as carefully plotted or as cohesive as James’s other works. But I respect the hell out of her trying something so different at age 91.

Something to aspire to, perhaps.

Thanksgiving: Connections and recalibrations

For those who’ve been unaware of all the Black Friday advertisements, today is Thanksgiving. The actual day when we actually pause to give actual thought about things we might actually be grateful for.

Mostly people talk about the big things—health, security, shelter, family, jobs, etc. I’m concentrating on smaller things this week, things that might not be the most stand-in-your-face objects of gratitude.

Today I’m grateful for conversations that end up taking sharp turns because someone picks up on some element that never occurred to me might be capable of being viewed differently than from my perspective.

And of course, I’m grateful for the people who put up with those sometimes loopy conversations, who encourage them, and who take pleasure in them.

Viz.:

A few days ago I was talking with my BFF. She brought up a technical issue that occurred when she tried sharing my post about the D-Day then-and-now photos. You know—a combat photo from 6 June 1944 that morphed into a shot of the same spot taken this year.

I got a little excited, because after I’d written that post, I got some info about this particular picture of British Commandos landing at Juno Beach, from someone whose father was in No. 4 Commando, which landed on Sword Beach:

I’d asked him about the fact that several of the men in that picture do not appear to be wearing helmets. It was time-stamped 0900, and since the landings on Juno began at 0745, I was wondering if it was possible that the beach might have been cleared enough of the enemy within an hour or so that men disembarking might not have needed helmets.

He roughed out the background of the Commandos, and then mentioned that his father had been caught stealing chickens (not a petty crime when your nation is under wartime rationing) and given the choice between going to jail or “volunteering” for the Commandos. (His subsequent combat history suggests to me that he was a much better Commando than a chicken thief, which I found extremely interesting, and is probably a good outcome for everyone concerned.)

Well, so, back to my convo with my BFF. I got kind of lively when I reached the part about the type of man accepted into the Commandos, and even more lively when describing Lord Lovat, the man who put the units together and led them.

Bas Bleu: This Lovat guy was eccentric in the way that you only ever seem to find in the British army. He gave each commando the choice of whether he wanted to go ashore with or without helmet. And he had his personal piper march up and down the landing beach…

BFF: [long pause] Oh—PIPER. I was thinking ‘Piper Cub’…

BB: [pause] Oh. Yeah. Entirely different sort of eccentricity. [pause] No—guy with a set of bagpipes.

[Mutual snorts and giggles]

See, she’s into civil aviation, I’m into how people deal with combat. I was thinking, “What does it say about a commander and fighting unit that has a guy in kilts playing pibrochs and whatnots in the middle of a mechanized firefight?”; she’s thinking, “I wonder what they were doing there with a little aircraft?”

Then we both had to take a sideways glance at what we were assuming was the common ground, and recalibrate.

And, that, my children, is how we expand our knowledge base: by realizing that there are multiple perspectives on everything, and that vocabulary is contextual.

It also makes life so much richer. For which I am extremely grateful.

P.S. Lovat’s piper was a man named Bill Millan. This photo, shot on 6 June 1944, shows his back, with the tips of his pipes poking in front of his face—he’s in the foreground just to the right of the photographer. And you'll notice he's not wearing a dag-blamed helmet.

He survived 4 Commando’s campaigns and died in 2010, much loved and deeply mourned.

(The photographer focused on Lovat, who appears in the middle distance, to the right of the column of men. I can't tell whether he's wearing a helmet, but my money's on not.)

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all. Musicians, pilots, soldiers, change ringers, lawyers, statisticians, spooks, poultry-nappers, personal trainers, mothers, baristas, social workers, Movember fluffers, artists, and especially readers and friends. You enrich my life, and I'm grateful to and for every one of you.

Liten tack

Having had a rather unexpected auto mechanic’s bill yesterday approaching the $1000 mark (for something related to the throttle, which cut out at a stoplight and apparently is necessary to the actual operation of the vehicle), I’m feeling just a tad on the ungrateful side. I fully recognize and completely acknowledge that this comes under the category of first-world problems, even though the whiny side of me moans, “But you can’t exist in California (outside of San Francisco) without a car; you just can’t!”

Yeah, that’s pretty much true, at least for me. (I know that whenever I’m under particular stress I start dreaming about crashing my car, being unable to find my car or having my car stolen. If you’re not a Los Angeles native you might not get that.) You sure as hell can’t get to job interviews without one.

But let me spin this in my head a little: I’m really grateful that this car—a 2001 Saab 9.3 turbo coupe—has been reliable transportation for me for the past 13 years. It was paid for 11 years ago, and still has fewer than 100,000 miles on it. Even with the repairs I’ve had to make this past month, it’s far cheaper than a new car, I enjoy driving it and I have a good mechanic.

So—I’m grateful that, even though I could have done without the money and five hours spent in the Swedish Auto Factory waiting room, my car continues to serve me, and I got four hours of work done.

Some days you just have to take your gratitude in small increments.

Latte love

It’s Tuesday Thanks day, so I’m grateful for the small beauties you can find in life if you take the time to notice.

Such as: latte art.

First of all, I can almost equate a coffee shop that gives you latte art with a coffee shop that’s going to give you really good coffee. Not 100%, but pretty damn most of the time.

Latte art means that no matter how crazed the place is, the barista is taking care with what s/he is producing for you. Brewing the coffee with just the right amount of crema. Steaming the milk so the foam’s air bubbles are tiny and what you get feels like silk flowing over your tongue, not like a an inch and a half of tasteless, frothy air (which seems to be the Starbuck’s norm). They tap the milk pitcher on the counter to settle it.

And then they carefully pour the milk into the coffee—just as you do a flute of champagne and create the design. Kind of like a Tibetan sand painter.

What’s even more remarkable is when they do it in takeaway cups, and hand it to you with the lid on. Because you could drink it without ever knowing that lovely little heart or flower is right there, made for you.

Latte art is kind of like the cotton candy artist I wrote about a while ago: exquisite as it can be, its one constant is that it’s ephemeral. It’s made to be consumed, distorted with the very first sip, presumably before the coffee cools. Yet baristas go on making it.

And I go on loving it.

So, thanks, latte artists!

Gratitude Monday: actual weather

On Gratitude Monday of the week of Thanksgiving, I’m grateful that we had some actual, recognizable rain last week. I even heard it against my kitchen window.

It wasn’t enough to do any good with respect to the drought we’re under here in the Golden State. But I’m sure it snarled traffic all over the Valley They Call Silicon, and 60,000 customers of PG&E no doubt lost power.

But it was lovely to see and to hear, and to remember places where I actually enjoyed changes in weather.