Author: louisaenright

I am passionate about whole, nutrient-dense foods, developing local markets, and strengthening communities.

Books, Documentaries, Reviews AND Interesting Information: No Time To Cook

Books, Documentaries, Reviews AND Interesting Information:  July 11, 2014

No Time To Cook

 

I’m so enjoying this summer.

In the mornings, I’m getting up early, feeding and releasing the chickens from their coop, feeding the dogs, making a big cup of tea, and sitting on my back deck with a book for at least an hour before really starting my day.

At night, before bed, I read fiction.  In these early morning hours, I am reading mostly nonfiction.  My current book is Michael Pollen’s Cooked, which I’m really enjoying in all kinds of ways.  I love the way Pollen THINKS about his subjects as it’s thinking that is informed by a lot of research of all kinds–to include spending time cooking.

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I’ve waded through the “fire” section–which is all about roasting meat over coals and all the implications of this very male form of cooking.  Think pit barbecue.

I’ve almost finished “water”–which involves stewing, souping, braising–or cooking in a pot with aromatics and liquids.  This “water” section also takes on the fact that we say we have no TIME to cook any more.  If buying food saves us thirty minutes a day, what are we doing with that time?

But wait!  Does buying food really save us thirty minutes?  Does going to a restaurant?

Americans work longer than any other industrial nation, writes Pollen.  Since 1967, we’ve added 167 hours, or the equivalent of a month’s full-time labor, to our work year.  With two parents involved, the amount is more like 400 hours.  Why?

This probably owes to the fact that, historically, the priority of the American labor movement has been to fight for money, whereas the European labor movement has fought harder for time–a shorter workweek, longer vacations.  Not surprisingly, in those countries where people still take home cooking seriously, as they do in much of Europe, they also have more time to devote to it (183).

And these people who cook are thinner, Pollen points out in a number of places in the book:  “the more time a nation devotes to food preparation at home, the lower its rate obesity” (191, 192).

So, we spend more time working.  We spend more time on the car.  We spend more time shopping.  We spend more time in front of screens (35 hours a week on average watching tv), surfing the Web (13 hours), and playing games on our smart phones.

Folks, WE HAVE TIME TO COOK good food.  It’s always already about the choices we are making, isn’t it?

We’re also doing a lot of what is called “secondary eating”–or eating while doing something else:  watching tv, driving, getting dressed, and so on.  We now spend 78 minutes a day in secondary eating and drinking (190).

Pollen and his family try an experiment:  Microwave Night.

He and his son go to the grocery store to pick out a dish for each person–three dishes (the third for his wife) and a dessert.  The total cost was $27.  (Pollen notes that he could have bought grass fed beef and veggies for a stew that would feed the family for two nights for the same amount of money.)  Their first obstacle is to buy food that has recognizable ingredients and isn’t full of hydrolyzed vegetable protein (soy).  Their second is realizing that some of their foods have packages that announce that they need to be cooked in the oven for best results and will take up to 45 minutes.

To make a longer story short, it takes an hour to microwave all the food–and at no time can they sit down together at the table as someone is always checking on the dishes in the microwave or their food isn’t ready yet, or is, but is getting cold.  Dinner time was a disaster in terms of family time.  The food also all tasted “remarkably similar”–no matter how exotically different–and much like what airline food used to taste like.

The next night, they ate a stew, visited over the table, and were relaxed and energized.  The stew had been in the refrigerator since Sunday–when it had been cooked for the week–a practice Pollen has worked into his schedule.

By the time the sweet smells of allspice, juniper, and clove began to fill the house, Isaac and Judith had gravitated to the kitchen; I never had to call them to dinner.  I brought the pot out to the table, and began serving everyone from it (200).

For the first time all day, it felt like we were all on the same page, and though it would be overstating things to credit that feeling entirely to the delicious braise, it would also be wrong to think that eating the same thing from the same pot, this weeknight communion of the casserole, had nothing to do with it, either (201)

So, I’m looking forward to the Air and Earth sections of Cooked.

And I remain certain that I will continue to “occupy my kitchen”–as I have all of my adult life.

Interesting Information: “Water Fluoridation Lowers IQ: Medication Without Consent”

Interesting Information:  July 10, 2014

“Water Fluoridation Lowers IQ:  Medication Without Consent”

 

Here’s a quote from this little sidebar article in the July/August 2014 issue of Well Being Journal (10, 12):

At present, 37 out of 43 studies, conducted in China, India, Iran, and Mexico, show water fluoridation lowers IQ in children.  Even the lowest level of fluoride assessed in these studies–1.8 part per million–lowered IQ.

So why is fluoride still being added to our water???

I’ve written at least three Mainely Tipping Points Essays on the high points of the issues involved in water fluoridation–using information from scientists with the credentials to evaluate this issue.  You can click on the Mainely Tipping Points Essays OR use the search button on the right side bar.

Books, Documentaries, Reviews: “Ingredients” Documentary Looks at the American Food System

Books, Documentaries, Reviews:  July 10, 2014

INGREDIENTS Documentary Looks at the American Food System

 

Dr. Joseph Mercola posted information on this new documentary a few weeks ago.

Here’s a quote from Mercola’s post:

The American food system is nearing a state of crisis. Ingredients is a documentary that explores the failings of the industrial food model, and how the local food movement is gaining momentum as a far better alternative. The film presents a refreshing look at food from the standpoint of sustainability, safety, flavor, nutrition, culture, and community.

This documentary takes us across the US from the urban food deserts of Harlem to the biodynamic farms of the Hudson River and Willamette Valleys, and into the kitchens of several celebrated chefs—culinary game-changers who are teaching us all how to eat better.

The current system, focused on cheap convenience foods, is costing Americans dearly. Most Westerners have lost their primal connection to food. Mealtimes used to be savored and shared with others.

Food preparation is now typically viewed as a chore that interferes with other “more important” activities. This detachment from food represents a cultural “disconnect” between humans and the earth, to the detriment of both. It’s time for radical changes to our modern food paradigm, which is the subject of this uplifting documentary.

This article discusses some of the costs to our so-called “cheap” food system, the industrial practice of Confined Animal Feedlot Operations (CAFOs), monocrop culture, and GE foods.  It also discusses the exciting movement to reconnect to farmers and real food grown locally.

There is a film trailer to watch on the site–and an interview with Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm.

Take a look?  And try to catch the movie in your future.  It’s free on Amazon Prime at the moment…

 

“Ingredients” Documentary Looks at the American Food System.

 

 

Interesting Information: Magnificent Magnesium Rescues The Heart

Interesting Information:  June 9, 2014

Magnificent Magnesium Rescues The Heart

 

So many people I know are taking blood pressure medicines.

And many of them are having additional problems as well.

I am wondering if the additional problems are connected to the BP med and/or to the other meds that seem to accompany the decision to take the BP med?

 

I ran across an article in the July/August 2014 issue of Well Being Journal that offers some interesting information about my question:  “Magnesium Balances Calcium and Rescues the Heart” by Scott E. Miners.

Basically, the article is a review of Carolyn Dean, M.D.’s book THE MAGNESIUM MIRACLE.

I googled Dean and discovered that she is both an MD and a Naturopath Doctor–so she sits astride the chasm that often lies between allopathic (mainstream medicine) and alternative medicine.   In addition, she worked with magnesium expert Mildred Seelig, MD.

 

Disclaimer:      Since posting this review, with the help of PhD nutritionist Judith Valentine, I did more research on Carolyn Dean.  (See judithvalentine.com)  Dean is really riding the coat tails of Mildred Seelig’s very valid and published work on magnesium.  Take a look at Selig’s publishing record:  http://www.mgwater.com/seelig.shtml.  It turns out that Dean lost her Canadian MD license.  Yes, she is operating out of the medical norm and is critical of today’s doctors and that’s always a problem for the medical police, but having said that, there is just too much “off” about Dean herself.  I ordered Dean’s picometer magnesium, for sale on her web site.  Maybe it’s ok.  She owns the company, which is now based in Hawaii.  (It’s unclear if California has also revoked her medical license.)  I have to tell you that Dean’s liquid magnesium tastes TERRIBLE.  My body just hates it, for whatever that’s worth.  For also whatever it’s worth, I’ve had no more leg cramps and none of the diarrhea that  some forms of magnesium that hang around in the gut can cause.  I think there is enough evidence that what Dean is saying about magnesium deficiency in Americans and the tremendous downsides to getting caught up in three to five medicines is probably accurate–so I am leaving the post here–but putting in this disclaimer.  And I have no idea about the quality of her magnesium product.  I also think WELL BEING JOURNAL needs to review their info on Dean’s work.

Dean thinks that about 80 percent of Americans are magnesium deficient.

Magnesium is the mineral that “activates” nerves and muscles, “including,” writes Miners, “the muscle cells in the heart.”  Further, “magnesium is important for maintaining optimal heart rhythm, blood pressure, muscle and nerve function, blood sugar regulation, and brain health.”  Signs of magnesium deficiency are “constipation and other digestive problems, irregularities in menstrual flow and reproductive health, muscle spasms, nocturnal leg cramps, and migraine headaches.”  And “loss of appetite, fatigue, numbness or tingling, and nausea.”

One idea I walked away with was the notion that blood tests don’t show magnesium deficiency because the body robs magnesium from other sites in the body to keep the blood level at about 1% magnesium.

Another idea was that one has to eat significant amounts of foods containing magnesium to get enough–and even then, the amount of magnesium in the foods can depend upon the soils in which the food grew.  With commercial farming, soil depletion is increasingly a problem.  The magnesium food list is seaweeds, leafy dark green vegetables like chard and kale, legumes, green beans, almonds, cashews, filberts, pumpkin seeds, and sesame seeds.

Dean says most magnesium supplements , especially magnesium oxide, are poorly absorbed.  Up to 96 percent stays in the digestive system, where it acts as a laxative, rather than getting to the cells where it is desperately needed.  Dean recommends picometer-sized forms of magnesium as that form can be totally absorbed at the cellular level.  Epsom salt soaking (magnesium sulfate) is another excellent way to get more magnesium into your system.  [And, more sulfur–see other blog posts on sulfur deficiency.]

DRUGS DEPLETE MAGNESIUM, says Dean–based on Seelig’s laboratory work with drugs and her own work since working with Seelig.  (Seelig tried to tell her drug company bosses that their drugs were depleting magnesium in bodies, but they “weren’t interested.”)

Dean details the following situation:   you are stressed when you see your doctor, so your BP might be high at that moment.  The doctor might put you on a diuretic–which drains your magnesium and potassium, which makes your blood pressure truly higher.  So now the doc will “worry that your calcium levels are going to rise, and will prescribe a calcium channel blocker.  Most doctors don’t know that magnesium is a natural calcium channel blocker.”  And, they’ll put you on a third drug, an angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor.  So now you’re on three drugs.

But the tale continues:

After two or three months, you come back and have blood taken to make sure the drugs aren’t hurting your liver….But all of a sudden your cholesterol is elevated; your blood sugar is elevated….The doctor says, “Oh, we caught your cholesterol.  We just caught your blood sugar.  We can put you on medications.”  Dean goes on to say that they didn’t catch these conditions; they caused them.  The more you reduce your magnesium, the more your cholesterol will go out of control.  She notes magnesium is important to balance an enzyme used in the manufacture of cholesterol in the body; magnesium helps to stabilize cholesterol.

Further, Dean notes that Statin drugs destroy an enzyme that magnesium needs.   And, that a sign of diabetes is low magnesium.

Miners notes that Dean writes that “doctors only recognize drug side effects 4 percent of the time because they do not want to believe they are harming their patients via their prescriptions.  More, drug intake also causes inflammation.”

And, isn’t this situation the HUGE elephant in the medical room these days?  Doctors are caught in what I’ve been calling a “kool-aid loop” of information crafted by the drug industry AND by the “standards of care” they are expected to follow.  It’s the rare doctor these days who is researching this information for themselves and trying to understand what is really happening in bodies.  Dean appears to be one of the rare ones.

Here’s what Dean says to do:  keep taking magnesium:

Take it in the various sources:  the picometer-sized magnesium, Epsom salts, and so on.  Take an oxide if you’re constipated…you may need the magnesium oxide, but take the others as well.

I would note that magnesium and calcium are “paired”–one effects the other.  Too much magnesium can block calcium.  But, my thinking is that if you are eating dairy products (cheese, yogurt, milk), nuts, seeds, homemade bone broth, and dark leafy vegetables, adding a quality source of magnesium to protect your heart might be a good idea.  I’m going to do it.

 

SO WHAT’S A GOOD BP TO HAVE?

I don’t have high blood pressure.  But I had always heard that 100 plus your age–over 90–was a reasonable BP, especially as you age.   Sherry A. Rogers, MD, an environmental doctor who has been a fairly prolific writer, has a book called THE HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE HOAX.  She quite seriously supports the more modern BP figure of 120 over 70.  BUT she advocates trying to figure out why the BP is high and counsels treating with diet and other lifestyle changes.  You can read a Weston A. Price book review at the following url if you want more information on this subject of BP measurements.

High Blood Pressure Hoax by Sherry A. Rogers

Interesting Information: Charcoal for White Teeth

Interesting Information:  June 29, 2014

Charcoal for White Teeth

 

Some months back, niece Nancy Howser Gardner posted an article about using charcoal to whiten teeth.

Here’s what I bought.  The bottle is full of capsules.  You break one open (into a glass or mug), dip in your toothbrush, and lightly brush.

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I was SHOCKED at how black, black, black my toothbrush got, and my teeth, and everywhere I dripped–which is why I’m suggesting a glass or mug from the get-go.  My goodness, I thought, what have I done.

And then I rinsed.

I was SHOCKED again at how WHITE MY TEETH WERE.

The plus here is that the charcoal is highly absorbent, but takes away tea tannins, coffee stains, and the like–not the minerals from your teeth or the enzymes from your mouth.

No questionable chemicals here.  Just plain old charcoal.

Oh my goodness…

The remains in my toothbrush continued to clean, too.  And I’m thinking that the more one uses the charcoal, the more absorption of dark things takes place.

 

 

Turkey Tracks: My Bowl Runneth Over

Turkey Tracks:  June 29, 2014

My Bowl Runneth Over

My strawberries are coming in!

Here’s the first day’s pick–Friday.  Something over two quarts.  The bowl is large.

These berries are, if I remember right, called “Sparkle” and are renowned for their taste.

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The second day was even bigger.  I took a bigger bowl out to the garden.  Got around three quarts.

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Today, Sunday, a smaller pick, but the berries are still large, and the bushes are loaded with developing strawberries that are still green.

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I also cut the garlic scapes (delicious!) and will make a soup with them.  I made a chicken bone broth over the past two days.  And, I picked the heads off of each of the broccoli plants–now they will bush out and grow more heads.  Or so I hope.

Our first CSA pickup out at Hope’s Edge was last Friday.  We got the loveliest sack full of lettuce, greens, herbs, green onions AND three pounds of wintered-over potatoes–a tasty treat.  Get out the duck fat for frying some up!

It’s swimming HOT today.  But not so humid.  It’s the first solid summer heat we’ve had.

Yeah Summer!

Interesting Information: Dr. Oz and Weight Loss Scams

Interesting Information:  June 25, 2014

Dr. Oz Promotes Weight-Loss Scams

 

I’ll bet I got 20 to 30 emails or questions about Pure Green Coffee, raspberry ketone, and Garcinia Cambogia over the past few years.  Many from people who should either know better or were just sharing.

I kept responding that there was no science behind these claims.

None.

Zero.

And I repeated that I didn’t care what Dr. Oz was saying because he had clearly sold out in some fundamental way.

I’d like to follow the money with regard to Oz’s (let’s remove the title “Doctor” from his name please as he’s an entertainer) claims about these fake weight-loss product, and I’ll bet someone will discover  that Oz is personally benefitting from these fake products.  Why else would he behave in this shabby way?

I’ll go further and tell you that I think and have said to many that Oz is a megalomanic who is only interested in himself.  I watched the program one day as Dr. Kaayla Daniel was a guest speaker meant to discuss soy issues.  Oz allowed her one or two sentences TOTAL and ended that segment by passing out soy plants to the audience.  I thought then that he had sold out in some way to the soy industry.  Dr. Daniel is a recognized authority on humans eating soy and published an impeccably researched book on all the ins and outs of soy and the soy industry.

Dr. Joseph Mercola’s post today discusses this Oz issue.  Here’s part of what he wrote, and I hope you go to the url below and read the rest as false advertising is ILLEGAL.

 

Senate Hearing Puts Dr. Oz in the Hot Seat

The hearing featured testimony from Dr. Mehmet Oz, who ended up getting grilled over his role in promoting what amounts to fantasy.2 According to Senator Claire McCaskill’s website:

“Last month the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it is suing the Florida-based company, Pure Green Coffee, alleging that it capitalized on the green coffee bean diet fad by using bogus weight-loss claims and fake news websites to market its dietary supplement.

The FTC claimed that weeks after green coffee was promoted on the Dr. Oz Show, Pure Green Coffee began selling their Pure Green Coffee extract, charging $50 for a one-month supply.”

Senator McCaskill read off a number of statements Dr. Oz has made on his show, such as:

“You may think magic is make-believe, but this little bean has scientists saying they’ve found the magic weight loss cure for every body type: It’s green coffee extract.”

“I’ve got the number-one miracle in a bottle, to burn your fat: It’s raspberry ketone.” “Garcinia cambogia: It may be the simple solution you’ve been looking for to bust your body fat for good.”

“I don’t know why you need to say this stuff,” McCaskill said, “because you know it’s not true.” Indeed, Dr. Oz is quite knowledgeable and we agree on many things. Unfortunately, I think he may have fallen into the ratings game when it comes to pushing “magic” weight loss pills.

I personally disagree with his stance on hyping up weight loss supplements. I’m particularly against the idea that a pill would be able to take the place of eating right and exercising, and this is something Dr. Oz is likely encouraged to promote due to successful ratings.

In a November 2012 show, he stated: “Thanks to brand new scientific research, I can tell you about a revolutionary fat buster. It’s called Garcinia cambogia.” Meanwhile, the words “No exercise. No Diet. No Effort” were emblazoned on the screen behind him. Most recently, Dr. Oz featured a product he referred to as “my Rapid Belly Melt.”3 Part of the show involved audience members photographing their stomachs. The photos were then photoshopped into a slimmer version. This, supposedly, was the result you could glean from this “insta belly melt” product.

It’s quite clear to me that these kinds of products, and especially these kinds of fantasy-based promotions, devalue the supplement industry as a whole. This is tragic, considering the fact that nutritional supplements serve a critical function by helping to correct specific nutritional imbalances or deficiencies.

Weight Loss Supplements: Are They Worth the Potential Risks?.

 

Here, too, is John Oliver in a 14-minute clip completely destroying what Oz has done–if you want to see for yourself the claims Oz was making.

Watch John Oliver Verbally Pants Dr. Oz Over Dietary Supplements.

 

Meanwhile, note that the only way to weight loss and good health is eating clean, nutrient-dense foods that are, hopefully, locally sourced so you are eating them in season and at the height of their powers.

There are no magic bullets to undo that which we have done.

Turkey Tracks: “Songbird” Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  June 25, 2014

Songbird Quilt

 

A baby quilt for a little girl!

Niece Lucy Howser Stevens was due in June with my great niece…

Here’s the fabric with which I started.  I fell in love with the large print last fall at Marge Hallowell’s Maine-ly sewing in Nobleboro, Maine, and knew I’d use it in a baby quilt.  Then, while at Maine-ly Sewing, at a January sale day, I saw these polka dot fabrics.  Of course they were NOT on sale!  As the large print was still in the store, I was able to determine that the polka dots would work.  Friend Gail Nicholson saw the BIG polka dots and said she was sure they would work really well with the little ones.  So I bought that fabric too.

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Here’s the finished quilt–which I sent off last week.  Five days to Wyoming…

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“Songbird” is a nice size, too–which you can tell when it’s on a queen-sized bed.

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Here are some close-ups:

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I like the low-contrast of many of the nine-patch blocks in this quilt as they allow the big print and some of the big polka dot fabrics to shine.

 

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Here’s the center:

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The backing is pink polka dot:

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And the pantograph was Anne Bright’s “12-inch Simple Feathers.”  I really like the soft, feminine curves in this pantograph.

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The quilting came out really nicely in this quilt.  I used a soft cream thread.

So there you have it:  “Songbird” quilt for a little girl, Willamina Grace, who, I hope, will sing through her life.

Turkey Tracks and Books, Documentaries, Reviews

Turkey Tracks and Books, Documentaries, Reviews:  June 23, 2014

Maine Summer Sky and Reading on the Back Deck

The Flame Throwers:  Rachel Kushner

 

For the past three mornings, I’ve spent a few hours reading on the back deck–drinking my early morning tea and moving from sun to shade and back as the heat dictates.

The morning sky has been that incomparable shade of blue that we get here in the summer:

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Around noon, the wind comes up and, sometimes, clouds blow in.  But the mornings…  Well, they are a delight.

In the late afternoon the temps start to drop–all the way to high 40s last night–which means glorious sleeping.

What have I been reading?

Our book club selection for July.

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I finished it today and will move on to something else.  For some reason, I seem to read more fiction during the summer.  Maybe that’s about slowing down and relaxing a bit.

This book is a New York Times bestseller–and for good reason.  It’s a dense, complicated, terrific read.

It was also one of the 10 best books of 2013, as picked by The New York Times.

And a National Book Award finalist.

The story takes place mostly in 1975-1977–in New York City and Italy.  Both were experiencing turbulent times, with a lot of labor unrest, anarchy, and pervasive challenges to “law and order” and the status quo.  Remember that 1968 was a year in which students all over the world (remember France?) famously protested  class inequities, the Vietnam war, loss of wages among the poor, and so on.  But that unrest continued for, obviously, a decade.

Reno thinks she is a “land artist”–which means she likes to create marks on the earth and photograph them.   What especially draws her are marks that chart speed/time and line–which involves motorcycles.   She falls into a company of very successful avant garde artists in New York City, but only in a “hanger on” sort of way.  Underneath is always already, the silencing of women and their reduction to sexual relationships.  The novel is much, much more complicated than these easy simplicities I am voicing here.

There are, in this novel, many riffs on language and the double meanings of words–or the loaded cultural baggage in words.  Here’s an example of one such riff–made and taped by one of the artists:

Home.  We say ‘home,’ not ‘house.’  You never hear a good agent say ‘house.’  A house is where people have died on the mattresses.  Where pipes freeze and burst.  Where termites fall from the sink spigot.  Where somebody starts a flu fire by burning a telephone book in the furnace.  Where banks repossess.  Where mental illness takes hold.  A home is something else.  Do not underestimate the power in the word home.  Say it. “home.”  It’s like the difference between ‘rebel’ and ‘thug.’  A rebel is a gleaming individual in tight Levi’s, a sneering and pretty face.  The kind Sal Mineo wet-dreams.  A thug is hairy and dark, an object that would sink to the bottom when dropped in a lake.  A home is maintained.  Cared for.  Loved.  The word home is savory like gravy, and like gravy, kept warm.  A good realtor says ‘home.”  Never ‘house.’  Always ‘cellar’ and never ‘basement.’  Basements are where cats crap on old Santa costumes.  Where men drink themselves to death.  Where children learn firsthand about sexual molestation.  But cellar.  A cellar is where you keep root vegetables and wine.  Cellar means a proximity to the earth that’s not about blackness and rot but the four ritual seasons.  We say ‘autumn,’ not ‘fall.’  We say ‘The leaves in this area are simply magnificent in autumn.’  We say ‘simply magnificent,’ and by the way, ‘lawn,’ not ‘yard.’  It’s ‘underarm’ to ‘armpit.’  Would you say ‘armpit’ to a potential buyer?  Say ‘yard’ and your buyer pictures rusted push mowers, plantar warts.  Someone shearing off his thumb and a couple of fingers with a table saw.  A tool shed where water-damaged pornography and used motor oil funneled into fabric softener bottles cohabitate with hints of trauma that are a thick and dark as the oil.

And on and on it goes.

Here’s the opening paragraph of The New York Times book review by Christina Garcia–followed by the url to the review:

In “The Flamethrowers,” her frequently dazzling second novel, Rachel Kushner thrusts us into the white-hot center of the 1970s conceptual art world, motorcycle racing, upper-class Italy and the rampant kidnappings and terrorism that plagued it. It’s an irresistible, high-octane mix — and a departure from the steamier pleasures of her critically acclaimed first novel, “Telex From Cuba.” The language is equally gorgeous, however, and Kushner’s insights into place, society and the complicated rules of belonging, and unbelonging, can be mordantly brilliant. None of the characters in “The Flamethrowers” are quite what they seem, fabricating pasts as nonchalantly as they throw together their art. Above all, they hunger to be seen, to distinguish themselves from the ordinary. One artist, responding to the question of why he invents, defends his florid lies as “a form of discretion.”

Garcia finds the novel’s ending chapters…disjointed.  I did not, though I see what she means.  I think when Kushner’s characters move aside their imaginative lives and touch down to earth, something is lost–for them.  That truth (what else is there?  is this all there is?) is the hard truth we all must face as we face our own mortality.  The two main characters have to…grow up…amidst the disjointed facets of their lives which are made more disjointed by chaos and violence.

Books, Documentaries, Reviews: BILLY LYNN’S LONG HALFTIME WALK, Ben Fountain

Books, Documentaries, Reviews:  June 23, 2014

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

Ben Fountain

 

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It’s a prize winner–and it should be:

National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction

Finalist, National Book Award

Finalist UK National Book Award

Los Angeles Ties Book Award for Fiction

Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize

Texas Institute of letters Jesse H. Jones Award for Fiction

Pen New England Cerulli Award For Excellence in Sports Fiction

And, here’s the The New York Times book review:   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/books/review/billy-lynns-long-halftime-walk-by-ben-fountain.html

BUT, 

while I think everyone in America should read this novel, I know that not all that many, in terms of total percentages, will.  Which is too bad, as this country badly needs a corrective in its national consciousness about the thing we call war. 

I will caution that this novel involves a group of Army soldiers who talk like soldiers and, often, act like the 19 and 20-something year olds that they are.  These fellows have been exposed to terror and fear and actual combat for some time.  In one encounter, an embedded cameraman captures heroic actions in a fight that gets uploaded onto utube and plays on the nightly news.  We now have the “Bravo Heroes” who have been brought home for a “victory” tour designed to make a case for the war.  This “vacation” from the war is undergirded horribly by the certain knowledge that they will be going back very shortly.

Fountain has mounted a devastating critique of a country of well-meaning nice folks who speak a cultural language ABOUT war (freedom, kick their buts, did your duty, Nine 11, terrorists) and enjoy violent games (football) and mindlessly send young men to war without really understanding what happens to those young men when the full impact of actual war with all its violence surrounds them.  Nor do these citizens understand the relative ineffectiveness of this (Iraq) war effort.  Nor do these same nice folks understand how these young men feel when they come home and encounter the fact that the country whose “freedom” they are fighting for is but a giant shopping mall with a country attached (as Fountain says somewhere in the book)–complete with wealthy industry captains (like the owner of the Cowboys football team who tries to win what he wants at all costs and without any regard for actual human beings and who behaves beyond despicably when he does not “win” what he wants from these soldiers.  The underbelly of that mindset is much like closing that bridge in New Jersey to get back at a local mayor.)

Here’s a quote:

Americans fight the war daily in their strenuous inner lives.  Billy knows because here at the contact point he feels the passion every day.  Often it’s in their literal touch, a jolt arcing across as they shake hands, a zap of pent-up warrior heat.  For so many of them, this is the Moment:  His ordeal becomes theirs and vice versa, some sort of mystical transference takes place and it’s just too much for most of them, judging from the way they choke in the clutch.  They stammer, gulp, brainfart, and babble, gum up all the things they want to say or never had the words to say them in the first place, so they default to old habits.  They want autographs.  They want cell phone snaps.  They say thank you over and over and with growing fervor, they know they’re being good when they thank the troops and their eyes shimmer with love for themselves and this tangible proof of their goodness.  One woman bursts into tears, so shattering is her gratitude.  Another asks if we are winning, and Billy says we’re working hard.  “You and your brother soldiers are preparing the way,” one man murmurs, and Billy knows better than to ask the way to what.  The next man points to, almost touches, Billy’s Silver Star.  “That’s some serious hardware  you got,” he says gruffly, projecting a flinty, man-of-the-world affection.  “Thanks,” Billy says, although that never seems quite the right response.  “I read the article in Time,” the man continues, and now he does touch the medal, which seems nearly as lewd as if he’d reached down and stroked Billy’s balls.  “Be proud,” the man tells him, “you earned this,” and Billy thinks without rancor, How do you know?  Several days ago he was doing local TV and the blithering twit-savant of a TV newsperson just came out and asked:  What was it like?  Being shot at, shooting back.  Killing people, almost getting killed yourself.  Having friends and comrades die right before your eyes.  Billy coughed up clots of nonsequential mumblings, but as he talked a second line dialed up in his head and a stranger started talking, whispering the truer words that Billy couldn’t speak.  It was raw.  It was some fucked-up shit.  It was the blood and breath of the world’s worst abortion, baby Jesus shat out in squishy little turds.

That newsperson sounds a bit like the one in the Hunger Games movies…

Doesn’t s/he?

You know, as long as we are distracted by the “bread and circus” of American life, we will not “see” what’s really going on in America these days.  And underneath this story, is a plea to follow the money, to reject the fireworks and stars at halftime, to understand the real costs being extracted from all of us…

This novel also resonates strongly with Stephen Kinzer’s The Brothers, which I discussed elsewhere on this blog.