Author: Gil

Flight from St. Louis was delayed for a while today, but I got in safe and sound.

Also, the extra time allowed me to finish The System of the World, completing Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle. It was a heck of a read (started the first book at the end of September), with plenty of material to chew on. My brain’s percolating away, and I hope to write about the books sometime in the next few weeks.

I was worried, as I closed in on my home, that the snow would be drifted up 30 inches high in my driveway. I was in no mood to start shoveling around 8:30 pm, which is when I was going to reach my house.

Fortunately, the snow wasn’t as bad up here as I’d feared. It was only 8-10 inches high, and pretty powdery. My gold standard for messed-up weather is the blizzard of 1996, in which we got pasted with about 30-35 inches, so tonight’s level was officially No Big Deal.

I pulled into a neighbor’s house and started shoveling the mouth of my driveway, which was much higher and denser. Soon, my neighbor came out with his snowblower. I insisted that he didn’t need to, and that I’d just roll my Element up the driveway once I cleared this part out. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. It was awfully kind, as he cleaned up the entire driveway, and made me realize that I really need to buy myself a nice snowblower.

So that’s about it. No witticisms, polemicisms, or politicisms. But I will share some pictures from the weekend:

A surprise birthday party for Shannon (the blonde on the left).

Doug & Brewster, the latter being an affectionate dog.

My beautiful niece, Liat.

My beautiful niece, Liat, who has dressed me up in several different scarves. It was even worse than it looks. Laugh while you can; you’ll get yours.

Johnny Carson, RIP.

The official VM girlfriend & I are off in St. Louis, visiting family (mine) and friends (hers). While we’ve been pissed off about the weather here (15 degrees, insane winds), it’s nothing compared to the stuff we narrowly missed at home. To quote Weather.com’s severe weather announcement:

…NORTHERN FAIRFIELD CT-NORTHERN NEW HAVEN CT-NORTHERN WESTCHESTER NY- ORANGE NY-PUTNAM NY-ROCKLAND NY-WESTERN PASSAIC NJ- 600 AM EST SAT JAN 22 2005 CORRECTED EXPIRATION TIME

… BLIZZARD WARNING FOR THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH SUNDAY MORNING…

SNOW WILL MOVE IN THIS AFTERNOON… AND WILL BECOME VERY HEAVY LATE THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING. THE SNOW WILL CONTINUE INTO SUNDAY MORNING… THEN TAPER OFF SUNDAY AFTERNOON. TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS WILL BE 18 TO 24 INCHES BY SUNDAY EVENING. IN ADDITION TO THE SNOW… NORTHEAST WINDS WILL INCREASE THIS AFTERNOON… AND WILL BE QUITE GUSTY TONIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING. WINDS MAY GUST UP TO 45 MPH LATE TONIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING… ALLOWING VISIBILITIES TO DROP TO NEAR ZERO AT TIMES. THESE WINDS WILL RESULT IN SIGNIFICANT BLOWING AND DRIFTING OF SNOW AS WELL AS POWER OUTAGES. WIND CHILL VALUES WILL BE BELOW ZERO AT TIMES.

A BLIZZARD WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WIND SPEEDS OR FREQUENT GUSTS OF OVER 35 MPH ARE EXPECTED WITH CONSIDERABLE FALLING AND OR BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW. VISIBILITIES WILL BECOME POOR… WITH WHITEOUT CONDITIONS AT TIMES. THOSE VENTURING OUTDOORS MAY BECOME LOST OR DISORIENTED… SO PEOPLE IN THE WARNING AREA SHOULD STAY INDOORS.

ANY TRAVEL IS STRONGLY DISCOURAGED. IF YOU LEAVE THE SAFETY OF BEING INDOORS… YOU ARE PUTTING YOUR LIFE AT RISK.

THIS IS A LIFE-THREATENING WINTER WEATHER SITUATION! PREPARATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY SHOULD COMPLETED BY NOON TODAY!

Notwithstanding the lack of etiquette shown by using all caps, the weather guys seem awfully freaked out by this storm hitting NY/NJ/PA. In fact, my Dad called from NJ a few hours ago to say, “One inch already, it’s horizontal from the wind, and it’s 8 degrees out.”

If we start to get hit with Hot Hail anytime soon, then I’ll have to assume that Ming the Merciless has returned.

Remember, kids: There’s a difference between a state sponsoring assassination, and a head of state inciting assassination.

A few weeks late, but mind-blowing messed-up-edness from some guy’s family Christmas get-together.

Hmm. He’s a professor at UMass? You don’t say . . .

Evidently, Errol Morris was so excited about being added to the Virtual Memories blogroll, he wrote a completely unrelated opinion piece in today’s New York Times.

To me, John Kerry’s heroism encompassed both his actions in combat and his willingness to change his mind and stand up for what he thought was right. He realized that soldiers and civilians were dying in a war that wasn’t accomplishing its objectives. Yet he never tied this crucial piece of his biography into his campaign for the presidency. And in failing to do so, he left a blank space in his personal story – a blank space that made it possible for the criticisms of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to be alarmingly effective.

By implying that his real heroism was fighting in Vietnam, Mr. Kerry also left himself open to the charge that he was somehow inauthentic. Americans have a complicated relationship with their military heroes: we expect them not to talk about their heroism. War heroes, in real life and in the movies, rarely speak about their courage in battle. Eisenhower didn’t. Nor did Kennedy, Bob Dole, or the president’s father.

Give it a read; Morris provides a pretty good story-based theory on why Kerry’s campaign failed.

I got a $50 giftcard to Borders from one of my birthday attendees, so I lit over to the local store and spent a little.

In honor of MLK’s day, I bought When Negroes Walked the Earth, a blues record by Otis Taylor, whom you should be listening to (get Respect the Dead, to start out).

After that, I was kinda stuck. There were a bazillion things I thought about buying, but none that jumped out at me as something that would be perfectly fulfilling. So I bought this.

Last year, VM reader Elayne and essayist extraordinaire Ron Rosenbaum goofed on me for never having watched an Errol Morris movie. I finally sat down and watched my TiVo’d copy of The Fog of War a few nights ago. I’m still picking up pieces of my brain from the floor of my living room.

I wasn’t quite as angered as Rosenbaum was by Robert McNamara’s portrayal of himself (if you’re interested in reading Ron’s take on it, you should probably type “New Morris Film Traps McNamara in a Fog of War” into Google, then hit the “cached pages” option on the second link). I think it’s an issue of age; I was born in 1971, so rage about Vietnam is really second-hand. Intellectually, I understand the anger, but it’s not an era with which I have any direct experience, so my view of McNamara was more ambiguous than the one Ron demonstrates in his column.

Anyway, that’s why I added Errol Morris’ site to the blogroll. It’s got some intriguing content, and a really smooth-looking design.

At some point, I guess I’ll have to watch a Michael Moore flick, so’s I can write draw some sorta comparison between these two as filmmakers.