David Lynch: Mulholland Drive (2001)

David Lynch: Mulholland Drive / Mulholland Dr. (2001). Starring Naomi Watts, Laura Elena Martínez Herring/Harring (Countess von Bismarck-Schönhausen) and Justin Theroux. 

After having seen everything David Lynch at least once, it's easier to go back and reconsider Mulholland Drive.

In short, what a cool, weird film!  Watts is also in Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), and Harring has since enjoyed a strong turn as a lawyer in the FX series The Shield (2006), among other things.  

What is Mulholland Drive?  Are we delving into alternate realities, psychological realms, dreams, feeling-driven memory distortions, alternate state consciousness, hallucinatory experiences, floating through the bardo, a limbo-like state, or a blend of such elements with off-kilter surrealism?  You tell me. The final response will be: "Silencio."

Today's Rune: Possessions. 

Anita Nair: 'Ladies Coupé' (2001)

Anita Nair's Ladies Coupé (2001) gives readers a glimpse into some of the workings and manners of India in the late twentieth century. It's really a series of tales related by different women traveling on a train to Kanyakumari.  They are interrelated but could also work as stand-alone stories. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Reminds me somewhat of Tosin Otitoju's Three Sisters (2015) which can be found via here.

Akhila, the main character in Ladies Coupé, has been a primary caregiver for her family. Now in her mid-forties, she's philosophical about life. On the train early on, she chats with a fellow passenger: "'As far as I'm concerned, marriage is unimportant. Companionship, yes . . . The problem is, I wish to live by myself but everyone tells me that a woman can't live alone. What do you think? Can a woman live by herself?'" (page 21). In this way, Anita Nair, the author, also happens to be directly engaging her readers with interesting questions like these. 

Akhila's friend Margaret at one point says: "'Akhila, if there is one virtue I have, it is immunity to what people think of me. Naturally this makes them dislike me even more. People don't like to think that their opinion of someone means nothing to that person. And when it is a woman . . . the thought is intolerable" (page 136).

A couple more quips. "Often Akhila had to remind herself that this woman who gnawed at her nerves like a relentless mouse was her sister" (page 160).

"It seems to me more and more that I know nothing" (page 190).

Given the sometimes long names and nicknames of people, places and things, including foods, I found it helpful to jot down notes to more easily keep track of everything. Now I'd like to eat some Tamil food and think about social expectations and reincarnation. Cool beans!

Today's Rune: Initiation. 

Berlin Detroit

The Wall: Berlin, eight years before it came down. (Click for larger image -- if you wish).

Detroit, twelve years after the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. Intersection: Hastings Street and Harper Avenue. (Click for larger image -- if you wish).

Today's Rune:  Breakthrough. 

Häxan (1922) / Witchcraft Through the Ages (1968)

Benjamin Christensen's silent movie Häxan (1922) clocks in at 87 minutes (or is it 104?); via Antony Balch, it morphs into a 77-minute version: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1968), wickedly narrated by William S. Burroughs and accompanied by a jazz soundtrack courtesy of Jean-Luc Ponty and Daniel Humair. Both versions are weird and fascinating and come together on one DVD thanks to the Criterion Collection.

"Häxan integrates fact, fiction, objective reality, hallucination, and different levels of representation -- all within a first-person discourse. . . The mixture of narrative modes . . . is astonishing for its freedom and audacity." - Gillian Anderson, liner notes, Criterion Collection DVD, 2001. 

"At times, Häxan appears to be a literal depiction of the imaginings of people of medieval Europe . . "  Sometimes funny, sometimes scary, sometimes both (the Devil's obscenely flickering tongue, for example). Crazy cool stuff, indeed, ending with little psychiatric episodes from the 20th century.

Happy Hallowe'en!

Today's Rune: Initiation.

The Spanish Civil War: A Documentary (Part II)

The Spanish Civil War (Brother Against Brother) Written, Produced, Directed and Narrated by Mike Leighton; Cromwell Productions, 1995 (2001 DVD). The Last Great Cause. Continued.

This documentary cites four poets, all of them fatalities as a direct result of the war.

Antonio Machado (1875-1939)'s “El crimen fue en Granada / The Crime Took Place in Granada” is an homage to Federico García Lorca (1898-1936), murdered with apparent relish by a Francoist goon squad because he was gay as well as pro-Republic. 

From John Cornford's (1915-1936) “Poem” (to Margot Heinemann):

And if bad luck should lay my strength
Into the shallow grave,
Remember all the good you can;
Don't forget my love.

In the course of the film, Cornford's “Full Moon at the Tierz” is also recited.

Two poems by Miguel Hernández are featured: “Recoged esta voz  / Hear This Voice” and “Vientos del pueblo me llevan/ The Winds of the People” It's all very sad, the human condition.  

Today's Rune: Wholeness. 

The Spanish Civil War: A Documentary (Part I)

The Spanish Civil War (Brother Against Brother).  Written, Produced, Directed and Narrated by Mike Leighton; Cromwell Productions, 1995 (2001 DVD). With informal subtitle: The Last Great Cause.

This is another good documentary on the conflict that's packed with archival footage. Includes interviews with British survivors of the International Brigades, and historical context by Richard Robinson, author of Origins of Franco's Spain: The Right, the Republic and the Revolution, 1931-36 (1970). An additional slant is in the use of poetry to accompany war images. As in many complementary documentaries, there is an absence of pro-Franco interview footage, something that would be equally fascinating to ponder.  

Pictured here: defenders of the Republic in Madrid, 1936. Franco's side was far more conservative in its approach to the "proper role of women in society." As of 2014 -- with the victorious Franco dead for 39 years -- one can again see in Madrid significant numbers of women in uniform: police, museum guards, transit workers and so on. Franco must be turning in his grave!

Here's a chapter breakdown for The Spanish Civil War, which runs just under an hour:

1. Introduction

2. The International Brigades

3. The Anarchist Movement

4. Franco Declares Martial Law

5. Siege of the Alcázar in Toledo

6. The Battle of Madrid

7. Las Pasionaria [Dolores Ibárruri]

8. Italian and German Air Strikes

9. The Non-Intervention Policy

10. Terrible Conditions of the War

11. The Bombing of Guernica

12. The Battle of Brunete

13. Dispelled Idealism

14. The Republican Attack on Teruel

15. The Italian Bombing of Barcelona

16. The Battle of the River Ebro

17. The Munich Agreement

18. Ernest Hemingway’s Role in the War

19. Republican Defeat

20. Credits

Today's Rune: Growth. 

Alfonso Cuarón: Y tu mamá también (2001)

A road movie with its own twists and turns, Alfonso Cuarón's Y Tu Mamá También / Y tu mamá también (2001) is a small budget independent production that makes a big impression. However, certain "earthy" scenes involving drugs and sex may scare people, even some who are perfectly complacent about seeing mass violence on the screen or in "real life."  Why is that? 

Its narration gives Y tu mamá también considerable weight and depth, even beyond the basic narrative arc -- more like a novel's. The way it's done is this: from time to time, background music and ambient noises are suddenly hushed, melting into silence as narration kicks in. Reminds me of Jean-Luc Godard in that way. We learn a lot of things that happen before and after the events that unfold visually during the film, providing context and a philosophical edge. 

Y tu mamá también, already part of the venerable Criterion Collection, may float around in one's consciousness for quite a while. And man, it's not like Alfonso Cuarón is some obscure figure. For example, maybe you've seen or heard of at least one of these other films he's directed: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Children of Men (2006), Gravity (2013). If not, is it possible that you're dead and just haven't realized it yet? 

Today's Rune: Fertility. 

Julio Medem: Lucía y el sexo / Sex and Lucia (2001)

Set mostly in Madrid and on the little Balearic Island of Formentera off the Mediterranean coast of Spain, Julio Medem's Lucía y el sexo / Sex and Lucia (2001) has an offbeat David Lynch vibe and a cool lead with Paz Vega playing Lucía. 

Because Sex and Lucia seems to revolve around not only Lucía but also her paramour Lorenzo (Tristán Ulloa), a writer, it can be tricky figuring out what exactly is "real" in the plot and what is imagined -- or happening in a parallel world.  Lorenzo is working on a novel, or two novels, on a computer in Madrid, but he's also corresponding with a woman on Formentera via the same computer.  Do all of the characters even exist? It's worth noting that Pepe, Lorenzo's literary agent, is played by Javier Cámara -- the same guy who plays "the weirdo" in Pedro Almodóvar's Hable con ella / Talk to Her (2002).   

I come away from this wondering: is the island really "hollow" or "floating?" How many rock holes are there, for God's sake?

Sex and Lucia looks good -- nice work by cinematographer Kiko de la Rica. The music (by Alberto Iglesias -- another direct link to Almodóvar) fits in well, too.

Today's Rune: Signals.  

Suor Sorriso / Sister Smile

Bold is a good word for Roger Deutsch's Suor Sorriso / Sister Smile (2001), an Italian language film based on the life arc of Jeanne-Paule (Jeanine) Marie Deckers, aka Sœur Luc-Gabriel, aka Sœur Sourire.

Sister Smile takes the original "Singing Nun" (played by Ginevra Colonna) out of Belgium and moves her decades forward in time, dropping her into Italy at the turn of the latest century.  Despite a framing narrator, the film never explains why. Kind of crazy cool that way.

My initial response: Sister Smile feels in tone like some kind of almost demented blend of Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973) and The Wicker Man (1973). Medievalish, something eerie suspended between an Andy Warhol and a David Lynch movie, with odd production values also looming somewhere in between, a psychological-spiritual disaster-quest played out on the astral plane. 

Trippy and memorable, just not for "family night."

Today's Rune: Strength.   

Jill Sprecher: 13 Conversations About One Thing

Jill Sprecher's Thirteen / 13 Conversations About One Thing (2001) dovetails nicely with the work of existentialist writers like Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Albert Camus and Hanna Arendt. On the one hand, we can do certain things, make certain choices; on the other, we take our chances anytime we wake up and get moving. Besides that, there's an uncertain amount of randomness and entropy at play in the universe.

A snippet of the Roxy Music song "Editions of You" (1973) covers the gist of it:

They say love's a gamble, hard to win, easy lose
And while sun shines you'd better make hay
So if life is your table and fate is the wheel
Then let the chips fall where they may
In modern times the modern way . . .

And the rejoinder:

Love me, leave me
Do what you will
Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

When somebody came a knockin' at her door, Dorothy Parker would occasionally mutter, "What fresh hell can this be?"

In any case, the film makes clear that kindness is rarely a bad thing, certainly preferable to cruelty, violence or indifference. As Tennessee Williams put it, attention must be paid.  

 

Thirteen Conversations About One Thing is not a documentary. It's a dramatic film structured around statements made by characters, unspooled in nonlinear form. The disjointed structure invites a second look, once the basic contours of the storyline are better understood. 

 

The one thing?  That state of being/perceiving called Happiness.

 

Jill and her sister Karen Sprecher have here woven together a meditative, sometimes brooding film, but physical events do occur, significant ones in the lives of the characters played by heavy hitter actors, including Alan Arkin and Clea DuVall (both now in Argo), Amy Irving, Matthew McConaughey and John Turturro. The last named reminds me that Thirteen Conversatons has a similar sort of take on life as the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man (2009).

 

Today's Rune: Joy.   

Up, Up and Away with TWA: Trans World Airlines, 1925-2001

Trans World Airlines (TWA): like Pan Am, swanky. Like Pan Am, absorbed into another airline after decades of service. In this case, acquired by wobbly American Airlines, now in bankruptcy.

 

Let's face it, the airline industry is a tough one. And it's not swanky anymore, at least from my experience. Riding Via Rail (aka VIA Rail) in Canada is a lot more civilized, for sure. But still, there's no good alternative to covering long distances quickly than by jet aircraft. To move fast, you've got to pay for it -- one way or another.

 

Today's Rune: Journey.

Andrei Codrescu: The Disappearance of the Outside

Andrei Codrescu's The Disappearance of the Outside: A Manifesto for Escape (Ruminator Press, 2001, with new preface; original edition, Addison-Wesley, 1990) does a lot of things at dizzying speed. For one thing, it discusses a lot of literature, particularly Romanian, but also Eastern European in general, and Latin American, with some on North American, too, including from the perspectives of Walt Whitman and William S. Burroughs. There is a lot about Dada, Surrealism and the Beats, about authoritarian society, communist dictatorship and also advertising, technology, propaganda and globalism.

Hopefully, more on this in the future. But in the meantime, one of my favorite lines in this dazzling text is also one of Codrescu's simplest: "Here were books."

This copy signed on March 13, 2002, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. That was a real cool time. Anne Waldman was there, too.

I've been co-reading Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space / La poétique de l'espace, translated by Maria Jolas (1994 edition; orginally published in 1958). Right now, it's as if The Poetics of Space is having a conversation with The Disappearance of the Outside -- right down to "the dialectics of inside and outside" (Bachelard, page 84). A nest, a space, a house, a place -- go, dream cats, go!

Today's Rune: Signals.     

Ten Year War to Nowhere

Chinook Down: Earlier today, guerillas shot down a US helicopter in Afghanistan, killing thirty-one Americans and seven Afghan government soldiers. Eight insurgents were also killed in related fighting, according to a Taliban press report. Other guerillas attacked and destroyed sixteen NATO fuel tankers near the Khyber Pass. These incidents are nearly identical to ones reported thirty years ago, only they were Soviets who were killed in the previous incidents, and the insurgents then were more commonly called "freedom fighters" and Mujahideen in Western press reports.

Consider this: In the Soviet War that lasted from 1979 to 1989, Afghan guerillas suffered more than 150,000 killed; civilian losses topped that by several times. The Red Army lost more than 14,000 killed and 50,000+ wounded. That war (or that phase of the meta-war) helped bankrupt the Soviet Empire, leading to its collapse.

The Soviet Union's Afghan allies lost approximately 20,000 killed in the first ten year cycle -- then many thousands more in the Afghan Civil War (Phase I) of 1989 to 1992. The 1992-1996 Afghan Civil War (Phase II) brought the Taliban into power. More fighting continued into 2001; then began the US/NATO phase that has lasted from October 7, 2001 through this very August 6, 2011 post -- and off into the future. Note: Osama bin Laden was killed on May 1, 2011 in neighboring Pakistan. US/NATO killed to date exceed 2,600, with 13,000 plus Americans wounded (the highest in the NATO group).

Finally: The only forces who can/will keep fighting at this cost in terms of casualties and finances are the guerillas. For them it is a cheap war, and there are plenty of recklessly macho volunteers in a permanent pipeline that cost little to train and maintain on the job. The population of Afghanistan is too large to "pacify." It's now pushing close to thirty million -- nearly double the population since 1979, when the Soviets moved in for their long shot at pacification.

Like its predecessors, the 2001-2011 conflict has been a long road to nowhere for all parties involved, but only the Afghans themselves, in all their factions, will decide if and when to end the fighting. I am dubious of a peaceful settlement, let alone a "successful" one. How about you?

Today's Rune: Fertility.

San Antonio: Robert Johnson at the Gunter

Robert Johnson (5/8/1911-8/16/1938) died at 27 -- just like Joplin, Hendrix and company did later in the twentieth century.  But not too long before,  he recorded a slew of songs in San Antonio (1936) and Dallas (1937).  The "San Antonio Sessions" at the Gunter Hotel are celebrated by the San Antonio Blues Society's memorials at the hotel.  I came across the display pictured above while at a memorable Easter Brunch with B & G in 2005. 

The Gunter, built in 1909, is now a Sheraton with all mod cons -- here's a link: http://www.gunterhotel.com/













There's a ton of Robert Johnson material out there, including all known recordings and this recent tome, Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues (2004) by Elijah Wald.



"I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" (1936); Elmore James did a cool version of this in 1951 and Bob Dylan's "High Water (For Charley Patton)" has a nifty little homage in it, as well, released in 2001.

Today's Rune: Protection.  

Afghanistan: Is Containment Possible?

I. Imagine if you will, an NFL football game that never seems to end. No quarters, no halftime. An almost endless supply of players to feed into the game. For many, this may sound like Hell. For a team that wants to win and go home, it seems crazy. But for those who love the process of the game, it could go on forever.

Afghanistan is not exactly like that. But it is a situation that's tough for "the West" -- the US and the rest of NATO and other involved friendlies. One problem is cost -- in terms of human casualties, and in terms of money spent: more than a million dollars' investment per soldier in the field, per year, in training, equipment, support, medical care. But for the enemy fighters? Much cheaper, not in terms of actual casualties, which are high, but in replacement costs, which are low. Local demographics work against the West. Insurgents can be replaced a lot easier and faster than Western soldiers. A kid of ten when the war began in 2001 is an eighteen year old fighter now. And it's cultural. IEDs, small arms and suicide vests are far cheaper to acquire and deploy than jets, bombers, transports, helicopters and mechanized equipment. The West must seek to minimize its own casualties; the insurgents would like to minimize their casualties, but are, to be frank, less concerned. And time works against the West, because the West thinks in terms of fast results. After eight years, a much longer war of attrition will cost the West far more than it will be willing to commit.

Seems to me that the West cannot "win victory" in Afghanistan, as in a post-season football game. It can only contain its enemies, as in a draw.

II. Finally, I was very sorry to learn via Johnny Yen's blog of the death of George Kaplan, whose MacGuffin movie poster blog I have enjoyed greatly. For more, see Johnny's post:

http://johnnyyen.blogspot.com/2009/10/death-in-family.html

Today's Rune: The Self.

What Do Buildings Mean to You?

I. Buildings are like characters, and they are also socio-economic and political symbols. In New Spain, including what is now the current Southwestern US, a seat of power like Santa Fe or San Antonio radiated outward from a town square that included trading areas, a Catholic church, a governor's palace and a presidio. Things were in a scale small enough for things to be clear to inhabitants and visitors alike.

II. But let's think of more recent times. Aside from forts and churches and mosques and temples, what do other buildings say? Or spin things around. Why are some buildings attacked or defended? Beyond, say the Alamo in 1836, how about the Harpers Ferry Armory & Arsenal and John Brown's raid in 1859? The Adobe Walls in 1864 and 1874? How about the Easter Uprising at the General Post Office in Dublin, 1916 (building pictured above)? How about King Kong scrabbling up the Empire State Building in 1933? ROTC buildings taken over in the 1960s and early 1970s? The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City attacked in 1995? The Twin Towers and the Pentagon, 2001?

III. It means something when buildings are voluntarily imploded, too. Certainly when the Hudson's (the J.L. Hudson Building downtown) was destroyed in Detroit in October 1998, it meant something: the demise of Hudson's department store chain (along with Jacobson's), or more accurately, dissolving into Marshall Field's and then Macy's.

IV. Some of my favorite buildings are religious or formerly religious ones, especially when surrounding grounds are included. But art deco train stations, post offices and department stores are impressive. What do buildings mean to you?

Today's Rune: Defense.

Another Post About Buildings and Food

As a follow-up to the last post, more about Woolworth's and its history. First, there's Remembering Woolworth's: A Nostalgic History of the World's Most Famous Five-and-Dime by Karen Plunkett-Powell (1999, 2001). Lots of photos included.


For a more recent examination, check out Jean Maddern Pitrone's F.W. Woolworth and the American Five and Dime: A Social History (2007), which also includes photos.


And a little more about Woolworth's and the American Civil Rights movement.

Soon after the Greensboro sit-ins, Martin Luther King, Jr., arrived in Durham, North Carolina, and paid a visit to the Woolworth's downtown, February 1960. Photo by Jim Thornton, Durham Herald-Sun. For more on King and Civil Rights activities in Durham, see: http://www.durhamcountylibrary.org/dcrhp/mlk.php

Today's Rune: Protection.

Musical Chairs, Revolving Wars a la Orwell

Okay, so: there's a lot of buzz about the current Hotel California president, G.W. Bush, either bombing Iran or letting the Israeli Air Force do their best first.

I saw a report today via UPI citing an Israeli official who claims Bush will launch a U.S. operation between election day and his last day in office, sort of like General Jack Ripper in Dr. Strangelove (imagine Dick Cheney riding a "newcular" bomb as it goes to target).

Moreover, imagine what such a catastrophe would do to everybody but the rich and famous living in their gated compounds and gilded mine shafts . . . More than just higher gas prices, I'm guessing.

Has anyone read George Orwell's 1984 lately? Not only are we enduring (and allowing) doublespeak and Big Brother, but how about bizarre revolving wars started from on high?

Consider things since 1980. First, the Reagan-Bush folks replace Jimmy Carter, giving the green light to contras in Central America (1981+), Israel in the Middle East, and kudos to Saddam Hussein for his invasion of Iran (1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War). Israel invades Lebanon (1982), Panama's Manuel Noriega gets CIA backing, Saddam Hussein gets US intel and logistical support. US goes into Lebanon, pulls out after Marines are killed in barracks bombing (1983), but promptly invades Grenada (1983).

Iran-Contra affair puts a damper on things for while, but only after Reagan-Bush have traded arms for hostages and sent a cake, a Bible and TOW missiles to Iran. Israel likes to see Iran-Iraq War, and supports Reagan-Bush happily. Oh yeah, Israel launches air strike against Iraq in 1981 with US backing. Reagan-Bush aggressively arm and support Islamic insurgents against Soviets and their allies in Afghanistan for two presidential terms, 1981-1989.

Fast forward to 1989, with Bush, Sr., as president. Bush-Quayle (and we thought Spiro Agnew was a buffoon) order invasion of Panama to take out former Reagan-Bush "ally," Manuel Noriega, who to this day sits in a Florida prison.

1990, Saddam Hussein orders the invasion of Kuwait, the "19th province of Iraq" artificially created by the British Empire after WWI for the purposes of protecting its oil interests and dividing and conquering the "natives," initiating the Persian Gulf War.

The US then begins massing (with diplomatic construction of real coalition partners) and launching Operation Desert Storm in 1991 with limited military objectives -- drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait and contain Hussein's battered military remnants.

Fast forward to G.W. Bush-Cheney. 9/11/2001. With the Russians out since the late 80s and Taliban in power, invasion and occupation of Afghanistan/Operation Enduring Freedom, 2001-present.

March 20, 2003-present: Bush-Cheney begin elective war (Operation Iraqi Freedom), widely known as the Iraq War or Second Persian Gulf War.

2006: Israel invades Lebanon again, a sequel to the 1982 war.

2008: speculation about air and naval strikes against Iran, Republican candidate John McCain having already joked he'd "Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran" if he was president, and Bush-Cheney seemingly willing to do just that themselves. Time will tell.

The real question is this: who have been "the winners" of Reagan-Bush-Quayle-Bush-Cheney's policies? Follow the money . . . . .


To follow up on yesterday's post, here's a still from Shaft's Big Score (1972).


One answer to the world's issues is to hook up freely across cultures -- diversity! Like Mexican-born Salma Hayek (Jiménez), of Lebanese-Spanish descent. She recently had a kid with a Frenchman, and though they just called off a tentative wedding, this is the way to go! Mix the gene pool widely! We've still got too many "hang ups" as a species. Make love, not war!

Today's Rune: Journey.

Mergers and Acquisitions II

Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona is due for American release on August 15, 2008. Given its location, star power and interpersonal "mergers and acquisitions," this could be a hit even in the USA.

I stayed in Barcelona in 1999 and found it cosmopolitan and fast-paced. Madrid, quieter and more set in the past, felt more satisfying as a reprieve from modern life, though.

The year before in Detroit, 1998, there were a number of businesses that have since gone the way of the Dodo. Hudson's was one of them. This was a series of huge department stores -- too huge for modern times given the fairly expensive merchandise. They were snapped up by Marshall Field's in 2001, which was in turn gobbled up by Macy's. The gigantic flagship Hudson's in downtown Detroit was imploded on October 24, 1998. If memory serves, the tiny downtown People Mover rail service was knocked out of commission for a while due to flying debris. Another one like Hudson's, only snootier, was the Jacobson chain out of Jackson, Michigan (which also hosts a large state prison). They went bankrupt in 2002, though there's a last spin off orphan store left in Florida.

A sad end came to record chains and most record stores. Harmony House Records used to have stores all over Metro Detroit. It was a center for concert ticket sales, too. Begun in 1948, they fell to technology and distribution changes in 2002. Another record place I used to shop at was Sam Goody (started up in 1956). I think there are two left in all of Michigan under the original name.


Then there were the drug stores like Rea & Derrick in my home town of East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, that had been a division of Peoples Drug before getting absorbed into the insidious CVS chain. In Metro Detroit, I remember Arbor Drugs of Troy, Michigan -- chomped up by CVS, also. There was at least one other drug chain in Metro Detroit, I think it was Pioneer Drugs. In any case, gone now. The last non-chain stores, the mom and pops, still hold on in various places and if I have to get something at a drugstore, I go to them first. It's important to keep some alternatives alive!

Today's Rune: Joy.

Mergers and Acquisitions I

Ridley Scott's A Good Year (2006), based on Peter Mayle's 2004 novel, stars Russell Crowe, Marion Cotillard (Academy Award-winner for her portrayal of Édith Piaf in La Vie En Rose, 2007), and Albert Finney. A good-natured comedic treatment of conflicting lifestyles and manners (British investment banking vs. French wine country). A nice diversion.

Meanwhile, far too far away from French vineyards, I'm about to shred the rest of my decade-old banking statements. Before I do, it's worth noting some of the economic changes that have been wrought in the past decade.

AMOCO statements. Amoco merged with British Petroleum in December 1998. Today, at BP stations, you can still sometimes see tiny AMOCO logos as a nod to the past.

I had an Amoco card ten years ago. In Detroit, on July 11, 1998, 12.1 gallons of unleaded regular gas cost me $13.76. That's about $1.14/gallon. They called it "Pay Express" -- I guess that was fancy spin for inserting your gas card at the pump and then pumping your own gas. I was driving a small black Dodge Dakota truck at the time.

The last time I ever used my Amoco card was on December 15, 1998, at Fourteen Mile and Ryan, Warren, Michigan: 12.3 gallons for $11.13 = about .91 per gallon.

The Amoco card replaced a Mobil card. On January 10, 1998, most of a full tank cost $12.00 in Detroit. Mobile merged with Exxon to become ExxonMobil in 1999. (The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in 1989.)

Before moving to Detroit in the summer of 1997, I lived in Newport News, Virginia, and had a Texaco card (I was looking for a place to live when the July 2 tornadoes ripped through the Detroit area). Back in Virginia for a final fill up with Texaco in Smithfield, it cost me $10.00. Texaco merged with Chevron in 2001.

These are just gas cards. Today in Detroit, some stations will only take cash now, and others offer a slight discount for cash payments. Most are hovering around $4/gallon.

Shred, shred.


Saw this poster at a school, behind glass: Un amigo siempre está listo para escuchar. "A friend is always ready to listen." Indeed . . .

Today's Rune: Journey.