Sentences
I visited Nashville a few weeks ago. The last few times I’ve visited my parents, books have just sort of been appearing in my bedroom. Some of them are books I read and loved as a kid (Redwall!) but some of them I've never seen in my life (Christopher Lasch?). One book in the latter category was the Dain Curse by Dashiell Hammett. I’ve been been to do a little dive on Hammett for a while. I read some of his short stories last year ago, and I’ve been trying to work out a way to rip-off/ update the plot of his story “Nightmare Town”, which about a fly-by-night prohibition town that is a front for an eastern crime syndicate. I tried writing it as one of those towns that have sprung up in the past couple years that are basically bitcoin-mine company towns. Maybe the crypto moment has passed, but I still think there’s something there.
Anyway, I’ve been reading The Dain Curse. In a lot of ways the precise diamond polished prose is worlds away from the extravagant bullshit I am always on. Stylistically, on a prose level, it is pretty far away from Against the Day, which I put aside for the moment after reaching part four (400 pages to go). But the plot is shaping up to be pretty Pynchonesque (sorry. I’ve never claimed not to be on my bullshit.) The confluence of conspiracy and murdered scientists and their drug addicted daughters sent to shady high end recovery clinics run by cults(?) all reminds me especially of Inherent Vice.
The prose is quick and no nonsense. Hammett wrote quickly, as a professional endeavor, to make a living. It is is quick but it is not careless. Every word is considered, exactly where it needs to be.
You know this. Here are a few sentences that made me stop to read them aloud to my girlfriend. Or at least note them. There is one sentence that I’ve been trying to find that I can’t.
“It was a diamond all right, shining in the grass a half dozen feet from the blue brick wall.” (a perfect little diamond of an opening sentence).
“His clothes were new enough to look new, and he wore them sportily.”
teevee (soccer)
The specter of death has been hanging really close over me the past couple of weeks, as close as its been. This isn’t a space where I want to go into specifics, not yet, but close family, distant family, and the mothers of childhood friends have passed away, and even some who haven’t passed away are feebler than I’ve ever seen them. And beyond my personal life, the past few weeks have felt particularly grim, politically. The supreme court is acting more and more like 9 blacked robed figures of death closing the coffin lid on humanity. I think Joe Biden’s performance debate has cast a pall on the national “vibe”, even among those who abandoned the Democratic party years ago. I’ve spent a fair amount of time among dying elderly people lately, and Biden did not seem that far off from them, to be honest. The mood, among those with even a passing interest in democracy, seems to be “sitting bedside in a hospice care facility”.
That being said, my parents and brother were in town this past week, and I especially wanted my dad to have a good few days. That meant, in part, watching a lot of soccer. It being fourth of July weekend (and quite frankly my current relationship to employment being “in flux”) meant I was able to accommodate him. Between Copa America and the Euro Cup, the past few days have served up some high quality games. Ecuador-Argentina and France-Portugal both went to penalty kicks (Messi missed but Argentina won, Ronaldo scored but Portugal lost) and Spain scored the winning goal in the 119 minute, a minute away from the end of extra time.
I’m watching the beginning of England vs Switzerland Eurocup quarterfinals. I’m torn. I don’t want England to win, but England losing in the quarterfinals is not a particularly interesting or funny outcome. England losing in the group stage. That would obviously have been the funniest outcome. England scoring the tying goal against Slovakia in the 91st minute and the winning goal five minutes into added time was dramatic. There is less possibility for something funny to happen in the quarterfinals, and there is a little less room for drama (though Germany, Portugal Ecuador, Spain, France, and Argentina would beg to differ). As it often is, one of the most exciting plot lines of the tournament is English team vs English media. And at this point I sort of want England to stay in for the sake of the gossip.
As I’m watching this now, at half time of the England-Switzerland, a correspondent has let us know that there is “tension in the German capital”, a phrase you never really want to hear, as extra police officers have been deployed in response to potential political reverberations of Turkey’s Merih Demiral receiving a two game suspension for flashing nationalistic grey wolf gestures. Things are tense. I don’t think Alexi Lalas is the one to unpack the rise of right wing nationalism in Europe nor complicated historical relationship of Turkey and Europe.
As the announcers said, we’ll see how this develops.