I’m not crazy about all the new houses out my way in Placitas, New Mexico, nor the power lines and gravel mines, but I’m still a fool for the drive home. This is what Cooper and I saw on our way back from the post office today. I like it best in the summer with cloud build-ups. I have to calm Coop during thunder and lightning, but I like to think we’ll keep the zip code for a while longer.
Rachel Dratch does for B&Bs what Anthony Perkins did for motels, renewing my wariness of chintzy lodgings and shared bathrooms. And may the wonderful Anderson and Pell — two solid avocados, I say — one day return safely to NYC, there to perhaps have the last word with Lorne Michaels.
Recently on dreamranch: Breakfast with Scalia You’re own your own, Trump Just shoot me
I wish the president a good vacation and suspect it can’t come soon enough.
Major Garrett at White House news conference
This was a week in which he was confronted by this and this.
Demonstrators greet the president in Oklahoma City
I know they were small things compared to other news of the week: the long-sought Iran nuclear deal; apparent jihadist shootings of Marines, sailors and police officers in Chattanooga; and a historic move toward criminal sentencing reform.
But I sincerely hope he can escape to Martha’s Vineyard next month with no puffed-up reporters embedding insults in self-serving questions or bigots flaunting flags of a painful past.
Recently on dreamranch:
Dark and stormy night
I might have to check out of the news for a while, given my expectation that Donald Trump will announce his own Trump the Bounty Hunter effort to recapture “El Chapo” Guzman, the likelihood that the Harper Lee publication story will grow more sordid and the inevitable media frenzy ensuing from The New Yorker report that much of the Pacific Northwest could soon be underwater “toast.”
This is more news than I can take. With the onset of El Niño, it’s already been a rough couple of weeks.
You see, my house turns into a Shakespearean venue on rainy season nights. There are no curtains and the electrical flashes illuminate entire rooms. The thunder booms like Stanley Kubrick is in charge of the kettle drums. Cooper, an animal shelter refugee whose life as stray probably began in similar circumstances, pants and paces and hides in whatever dark corner he can find. I stare at an imagined skull in my aging hand, wondering where all the gambols, songs and “flashes of merriment” have gone.
Any port in a thunderstorm
I feel sorry for my partner Cooper. But his misery reminds me that I was even sorrier for a girlfriend and her daughter on a rainy season night years ago, gamely but damply sitting through a chilly deluge at the open-air Santa Fe opera house, plastic ponchos and bulky wool socks, retrieved from the truck at intermission, covering summery print dresses and sandaled feet. Boot socks, like earthy evening gloves, might also have sheathed four blue hands.
Operatic clouds
Opera provided two of the brighter notes in news in the last couple of weeks: The New Mexican reported that the Santa Fe Opera has added more bathrooms; and my friend Larry Calloway relayed that a fellow named Derrick Wang had the smarts to write an opera about the friendship of Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
But I am afraid it is not enough.
I am fearful of a TV special featuring a bellicose billionaire presidential candidate swapping his tie for a gold chain and going mano y mano with a short but exceedingly murderous drug lord. The Pacific Northwest is home to friends and family members. And I just don’t know what to think about Harper Lee and Atticus Finch.
Recently on dreamranch:
It’s the Fourth of July. I expect to be 66 next month.
I wake up, as usual, with thoughts of my lung cancer, but today they take a preventative tack instead of just morbid.
I wonder whether the pasta primavera I made for dinner last night qualified as anti-carcinogenic. I remind myself I should get out on a walk with Cooper before the temperature climbs.
It’s 66 degrees at 7 a.m. We’ll be looking at 90 later on.
Coop, I suspect, is still exhausted from yesterday’s thunderstorms, but things otherwise look promising. It’s a little hazy over the mesas, but forest fire smoke is common this time of year. I suspect there’s also moisture lingering from last night. It’s deep blue higher up and white clouds are rising.
I check the iPad for the precipitation outlook, then see a Twitter photo of Caroline Kennedy standing at attention in an Uncle Sam hat. This icon of grief looks like she might be having fun.
Apparently taken and tweeted by Ambassador Patrick Gaspard @patrickgaspard.
I set the coffee water to boiling, open windows closed to keep out last night’s rain and step outside to sample the air, scan the views.
No fat diamondback to greet me on the front porch, like the other day. Things continue to look up.
I’m thinking Caroline Kennedy looked younger than her 57 years. My guess is that she was happy doing whatever it was she doing this Fourth of July.
I make Coop wait through a second cup of coffee before we hit the trail for our slightly lung-impaired walk. No aches this morning and, despite the diminished horsepower, I feel fairly strong.
We will do the right things today, just take them slow. I vow to eat fruits and vegetables of different colors. We’ll get outdoors early so I can retire to my reading space before the thunderstorms hit. Coop will be spared the heat and hopefully he can nap.
I am reminded by the note on my desk that I want to read Tobias Wolff’s short story, “Bullet in the Brain,” but, I assure you, for literary purposes only.
I hope the celebratory Fourth of July gunfire won’t be too bad tonight. That bothers Coop, too. But now it’s time to get out there and dodge them snakes.
And happy trails to Caroline Kennedy, my fellow American.
Previously on dreamranch:
I woke up feeling like a half-sawn log and realized that what had been grating on my brain was the stupid American action comedy I stayed up too late watching last night.
The movie was “2 Guns,” but the title really doesn’t matter. Any movie of its ilk leaves me feeling the same way.
For the record, it was an especially colorful sunrise that got me out of bed this morning. But last night’s movie lingered like a hangover.
It’s something about the plethora of automatic weapons, fiery explosions, easy money and interminable car chases. And maybe the tough guy thing, too. Unbelievable bullet-dodging skills underlie it all.
The guys in “2 Guns,” as always, are wronged good guys. They are expert in every form of combat. They are so street-smart they can unravel conspiracies faster than you can say grassy knoll, but only after they have been enlisted to carry these conspiracies out. The plots are easily adaptable to solo macho icons like Bruce Willis or Arnold Schwarzenegger, but that would make them dramas. Buddies make for comedy.
While surviving gun battles roughly every three-and-a-half minutes, the buddies in “2 Guns” shoot each other for laughs. And it’s the girl who gets killed so the guys can continue kidding around, but not before she shows up in lingerie.
This is what I get for getting my satellite TV receiver replaced after one heck of a lightning strike earlier in the week.
I used to think it was the ubiquitous good-guy assassin movies that were the blight of Hollywood. But now I’m wondering if it’s anything involving Mark Wahlberg. And, sure enough, “2 Guns” includes a sniper rifle scene.
I’ve learned that former military snipers are far more prevalent in society than I would have thought. And what is it with the Navy and special ops these days?
Wahlberg plays a naval intelligence specialist in “2 Guns.” Watching this came on the heels of seeing “NCIS” all over my TV directory. I finally Googled it to learn the mysterious acronym — almost too long to get on the peak of a baseball cap — stands for “Naval Criminal Investigative Service.”
All I have to do is read the morning paper in Albuquerque to get my daily dose of gun violence.
I’m not sure screenwriters could top the motel shoot-out the other day, involving two former CNN staffers — a former special forces husband defending his former anchorwoman wife — and a Tennessee parole violator.
But I’m sure some genius will try to embellish the story for the big screen. Maybe with a sniper.
You’re on your own, Donald J. Trump.
I read in the New York Times this morning that Macy’s is dropping your fashion line. I went to the Macy’s website and saw that the Donald J. Trump Signature Collection is already significantly discounted.
I was intrigued by the Donald J. Trump two-tone, lavender and white No Iron Solid French Cuff Shirt and the Donald J. Trump Tahitian Pearl Natte Tie, but as far as clearing this merchandise goes, I just can’t help you out.
You see, I am not a man on the way up anymore. I am officially retired as of this month. I am an unofficial watcher of clouds. I am leveling out.
As for men’s wear, I am pretty much down to Carhartt t-shirts, except for my once-a-week trips to town.
Only the neighborhood dogs howl when I walk by in my “Horseman” model Larry Mahan signature summer hat. Their owners already think I’m nuts. It’s almost accidental that my new reading glasses have Calvin Klein frames. They are stylishly blue, but they were simply the comfiest pair the Vision Store — conveniently located next door to Under Charlie’s Covers Fine Used Books on Camino del Pueblo in Bernalillo — had to offer.
As for celebrity influences, I confess I am still partial to my George Strait Cowboy Cut Original Fit Jeans from Wrangler, but even they comply with my new dress code that it’s all about comfort.
I am bit uncomfortable, meanwhile, with these recent controversies over whose songs are going to be adopted by which presidential campaign. I am not very familiar with either Jon Bon Jovi or Chris Christie, but the song stuff just doesn’t seem to be a real reliable indicator about the next commander in chief.
The Internet says George Strait is a Republican and I remember that Newt Gingrich used “Heartland” in his 2012 campaign. But the Internet also says the singer from Pearsall, Texas, tends to keep his views to himself, and I really don’t expect Trump to start making campaign appearances in George Strait Wranglers.
I notice that in a photo by Bob Beatty for the Topeka Capital-Journal, Trump is shown campaigning last Saturday in Winterset, Iowa, in what would appear to be a Donald J. Trump Signature Collection blue suit, white shirt and yellow tie. I honestly don’t know what the signature collection might offer for an Iowa steak fry, but maybe burning meat outdoors is more of a Democratic thing anyway.
The Macy’s website says “the Donald J. Trump collection at Macy’s … exudes a unique sense of style.” Sorry, “exudes” is a verb I’ve never wanted to be part of my public persona. And, frankly, the $25 Donald J. Trump Money Tie Tac – the one in the shape of a dollar sign – just seems kind of, well, tacky. What can I say? It might go well with the Donald J. Trump Fallings Bricks Tie at $36.99 – “Extra 20% off” – but I don’t know.
I acknowledge I am partial to Larry Mahan and George Strait, and I notice upon taking a selfie that my Carhartt shirt has a label over the breast pocket, but I otherwise prefer to indulge in my own sense of style.
This Trump thing just isn’t working for me. You know?
PS: My orange Casio watch — $19.99 from Target.
It’s really time to unplug and get out of the house when you realize you have started your day by:
Interviewed by Elizabeth E. Adams
INTERVIEWER
Do you think it would be possible for a writer today to have the sort of success Dickens had? To be the popular entertainment of the day?
BOYLE
The answer is self-evident: absolutely and categorically no. We live in a cluttered culture, a culture of information in which even our computers can’t tell us what’s worth knowing and what is merely cultural scrap. In such a society, we don’t have the experience of contemplative space, of the time or mood to engage a book of poetry or even read a novel. Who can achieve the unconscious-conscious state of the reader when everything is stimulation, everything is movement and information? How can I sit down to open up an imaginative journey in words, when I might be missing something out there on the net or the tube or in the halls or clubs or restaurants?
♦ ♦ ♦ ………………………………………………………………………………………………..♦ ♦ ♦
And here is a contrasting message about quality in the Digital Age. It’s an insightful column on television, digital entertainment and business models from the New York Times today: “How television won the Internet,” by Michael Wolff.
Clue: “The fundamental recipe for media success, in other words, is the same as it used to be: a premium product that people pay attention to and pay money for.”
Malana Pinckney looks at the president of the United States. Photo: Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
I arrived at a couple of thoughts as I tried to define events that left me in awe last week.
What happened?
President sings “Amazing Grace.” Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images
What am I taking away from this momentous week?
Young women interviewed in Charleston by CNN. Click for video.
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