Having gotten married and having moved all our worldly possessions to one flammable location, and placed them under the protection of a pair of fire-breathing slavering beasts and a gang of meth-addled bikers, Diana and I flew off to Italy for a few weeks of workingvacationmoon.

THE SIXTEEN STAGES OF MOVING

1. I want to move.

2. I hate to move.

3. I ought to move.

4. I hate to move.

5. I have to move.

6. Find a place to move to.

7. I will pack up my things. Tomorrow, sometime. Or the day after.

8. Oh. I move tomorrow. I guess it’s time to pack.

9. So. Many. Boxes. Of. Books.

10. I hate to move.

11. How important is a cleaning deposit, anyway?

12. Ow.

13. I hate to move.

14. Moved.

15. I’m glad I moved.

15b. But I am never moving again.

15c. And next time I’ll do it so cunningly that there will be no stress whatsoever.

16. I want to move.

As fate and my innamorata would have it, I watched (within the space of a few days) two movies based on old Ira Levin novels: The Stepford Wives and Rosemary’s Baby.

It seems crazy to give a spoiler alert about movies a couple generations old, so I’ll cut to the chase. Both stories end with the main character, a woman, happily at home in the heart of her family, and in an extended and supportive community.

In other words, these are nightmares.

On Friday evening I set out with an intrepid band to see The Maltese Falcon on the big screen at the Valentine theater in the big town of Toledo. Through a set of hilarious circumstances we ended up eating dinner at the Burger Bar, where prettty good burgers were eaten but no Maltese falcons were seen. Later, still craving a cinematic fix, we mistreated ourselves to Wrath of the Titans.

My bathetic reactions after the jump.

“All citizens take notice that Carnival is decreed for tonight. Turn back the clock. There will be music, dancing, happiness at the Carnival. By order.”

Starting the middle of the academic year at the beginning of the calendar year always seems weird to me. But weird isn’t bad, so I’m getting ready to (as Horace and Ellison recommend) “begin in the middle and later learn the beginning. The end will take care of itself.”

Breaking radio silence here so that I can wish a merry Christmas to those who celebrate it–and a happy weekend to all.

The Nobel Prize Committee passed over me and Bob Dylan again, in spite of my tireless efforts on behalf of American sword-and-sorcery and whatever it is that Dylan does.

I called him up to commiserate. I said, “This is starting to look like a cultural bias against Minnesota expatriates! The Nobel committee has some explaining to do!”

He implicitly agreed, saying, “Who the hell are you and how did you get this number? Stop calling or I’ll have you arrested.”

It’s enigmatic crap like this that’s made him the prophet of a generation, maybe even a generation and a half.

And no Nobel yet. Amazing.

Went down to the Black Swamp Arts Festival.

Going to see my baby there.

Actually, I went down there with her:

so sweet, so warm, so fair.

We saw/heard these guys there, among others: Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears. They were great.

Ten years ago today I was teaching a Latin class when the news came in about the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. I felt then that we should have gone on with the class, although it didn’t work out that way. (People had people that they were worried about, and that has to come first, even before things as important as Latin.)

But I still kind of feel that way. I don’t believe, I never believed, the “9/11 changed everything!” slogan. That was used by a political faction who wanted to ram through a partisan program of high deficits, perpetual war and the slashing of both civil liberties and social services. They succeeded, and we are not better off for it. We should have avenged our dead, kept them in memory and moved on.

9/11 changed some things but not others. One of the things it didn’t change was this: living well is the best revenge. Music is a part of that and, in extreme cases, dancing.

… was a blast. That’s what it’s for, I guess.