Heeeere's Blicky!

Wow that's scary. Sorry and my apologies to Jack Nicholson. Let me salve your nerves with an image from MFA Boston's show Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese; Rivals in Renaissance Venice.

There, that's better. Even Venus looks frightened. Blicky scared her so much her clothes fell off. My apologies for the extended silence, gentle bloggy readers. I was really quite busy:

A. Translating the phonebook into Esperanto.

B. Building a love nest/covert missile testing range for Kim Jong-Il.

C. Building a cool pillow fort in the living room.

D. Starting a new business enterprise in the burgeoning field of door-to-door interpretive dance.

E. Altering my address and facial feastures to avoid being stalked by Mitt Romney (I told you. It could never work. Stop calling me!).

F. All of the above.

So I try to make good use of my limited reading time these days, really I do. Usually it's historical non-fiction or really amazing fiction. I mean life is short, why not fill your mind with beautiful words?

But this summer a friend convinced me to read the Twilight series. First of all thanks a lot. You know who you are. Here's an excerpt of dialogue from the Blicky homestead while I was sucked into that series.

Kittens: Mumma we're hungry. You forgot to feed us breakfast and lunch.

Me: Shhhh, Bella's talking to Edward.

Kittens: Mumma, you left us outside in the rain. We're cold and wet.

Me: Be quiet! I think he's going to tell her.

Husband: Hi Sweetie! I'm home. I vacuumed the house and I love you.

Me: Go away, you not-Edward-Cullan-mortal man. I want a divorce because you're not Edward.

Cigarettes have warning labels, alcohol has warning labels. I think the publisher should be required to place a warning label on the Twilight books too. They are the literary equivalent of crack cocaine and something needs to be done.

I was initially ashamed of my habit until I remembered a very brilliant and well-read friend scoffing as the idea of a distinction between "high art" and the trashy read. What makes the distinction? I read some Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to the kittens a while back because I remember thinking it was hysterically funny when I was little. Here's a spoiler plot summary of the Miller's Tale:

Young guy moves into an apartment at the home of an unpleasant man with a hot younger wife. Young clerk woos and seduces said wife. Nerdy guy also gets wicked crush on the hot wife. The wife and the young man hatch a plan to spend the whole night together. They convince the jealous old guy that a second deluge is coming and that he should get set up in the attic for a great flood. Clever couple enjoys some amorous sport. Lovesick nerd comes by and begs for a kiss. Hot wife sticks bum out the window. Lovesick nerd, after kissing bum is no longer lovesick, but ticked off. Stalks off to find a hot poker. Clever young clerk thinks nerd wants another kiss and received a sound branding on his bum. Clever young guy has hot young wife but sore bum. Jealous old guy wakes up thinking it's the end of the world and falls two stories. The young couple convince everyone he's nutty and live happily (albeit sorely) ever after.

So is it really so awful that I got sucked into a romance about vampires, power, love and death and metaphysics?

Enjoy your mandatory fun:

Blicky Scores Interview with Author Ron Chernow

Blicky: Read book, Alexander Hamilton, mao.

Chernow: Thank you Blicky, but I published that years ago. Don't you want to discuss my work on the great families of history in the context of the current economic crisis?

Blicky: No. 

Maooo your account of Hamilton’s life chronicles reveals his remarkable ascent to power but also serves as a lurid chronicle of tragedy, betrayal and scandal.

Chernow: Um, Thanks?

Blicky: Maoo really formidable intellect for human.

Chernow: Well, yes Blicky. He was born an illegitimate child in the West Indies. He started out his career orphaned, alone and broke and within a short span of time he became a successful businessman, earned a law degree and became George Washington’s Chief of Staff. He went on to become one of New York’s most successful lawyers, he authored the Federalist Papers, and he constructed the basis for our modern economic system as Treasury Secretary. 

Blicky: Mao, cure cancer too?

Chernow: Blicky, did you even read my book?

Blicky: Mao.

Chernow: The thing I tried to convey was that we don't learn as much about Hamilton as the other founding fathers partly because his political foes, such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson outlived him. He made some tragic personal and political mistakes, but he was really the first to see that our strength as a nation would only be possible when we became a world economic power.
Blicky: Mao, give all gossip.

Chernow: Blicky, my work isn't about gossip. Hamiton's career was tragically sullied by an unfortunate affair with the young Maria (pronounced Mariah) Reynolds. Apparently she called at Hamilton's home in great distress, lamenting that she had been abandoned by a perfidious and cruel husband and required assistance to return to her friends. Hamilton being ever the gentleman, arranged to meet her later at her home where she received him upstairs and led him into a bedroom. He presented her with a banknote and as he himself wrote, "Some conversation ensued from which it was quickly apparent that other than pecuniary consolation would be acceptable."

Martha, you must divulge to me everything forthwith. Is it true she wears her bodice in the French fashion?

The bizarre part of the affair was that it went on for so long, even when the husband found out. Even when the husband began to bribe Hamilton. Even when Maria proved herself a tad bit unstable. Even when her husband, after Hamilton's interest seemed to flag, switched from being an aggrieved husband to a quasi-pimp/con artist. It almost seems as if Hamilton was seized with a sexual obsession which serves as a puzzling counterpoint to a brilliant career in public life.

Blicky: That would never happen today. Mao, great gossip Chernow. Knew you'd hook me up, mao.

Chernow: Blicky I resent the implication that I engage in gossip!

Blicky: Detected slight homoerotic subtext running through the book as well.

Chernow: That's it, Blicky this interview is over. Now if you'll just introduce me to Doris Kearns Goodwin as you promised.

Blicky: Ooops, forgot to mention that she'd won't be here today but will attend the inauguration festivities over at Muse Swings. 

Chernow: Damn you Blicky!! Damn you!!

Blicky Scores Interview with David McCullough, Author of 1776

I don't know why Blicky is so well connected, but he seems to know everyone. He walked in and deposited this surprising interview at my feet this morning.

Blicky Kitty: Meow just done reading 1776. Good meow.

David McCullough: Thank you Blicky.

BK: Meow, if Gordon Brown and Elisabeth get really mad at President Palin and decide to invade us and make us part of England again and call underwear knickers and dinner supper and bathroom loo and make us eat aubergines and courgettes and not invade any more countries and stuff, and we were able to reconstruct George Washington using DNA from wooden teeth, whom would he choose to help him defend this country if he could only pick two? Maybe all his men were preserved cryogenically in some magical steampunky thing and he got to pick. 

DM: Well, I get asked that a lot, and I always think if he had to pick two men it would have to be Nathanael Greene and Henry Knox. Henry Knox led the expedition from Cambridge MA up to Fort Ticonderoga to retrieve the cannons recently won there. He managed to complete the 300 mile trip in 56 days, carrying 59 cannon and mortars weighing a total of 60 tons over the winter ice and snow. The success of the expedition was credited to Knox's unflagging determination and his ever-present booming voice.

BK: Knox big stud?

DM: Well I guess so Blicky. There's no evidence that his wife Lucy Flucker thought so, but she was the daughter of loyalists and had to forsake her family to marry him.

BK: Flucker?

DM: Flucker.

BK: Nathanael Greene?

DM: Nathanael Greene was the commander of the Rhode Island regiment. He came from a quaker family and was largely self taught in all military matters. He served in the ranks briefly because he was initially denied the rank of officer because of a slight limp. The Rhode Islanders were the only regiment Washington never spoke of in disparaging terms.  Greene played a crucial role in the pivotal battle against the Hessians at Trenton which turned the course of the war.

BK: All sound pretty studly.

DM: Well I didn't come across anything in the 18th-century documents that supports studliness, but the determination that Washington and his men showed really turned the tide of the war during that pivotal year of 1776. The conditions were pretty difficult for all of the soldiers involved, and they really overcame quite sizeable odds.

BK: Thanks meow interview.

DM: OK, well, you promised to give me Doris Kearns Goodwin's number.

BK: Restraining order.

DM: Damn you, Blicky Kitty, damn you!