Allen Kopp – Page 61 – Literary Fictions

I’ll Do It but I Won’t Like It

I’ll Do It but I Won’t Like It ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

I wonder about people who work in offices, and I especially wonder about people who work in offices and like it. I’ve worked in quite a few offices over the long years and I guess I can say I’m stronger for having done it. (That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger). I have to admit, though, that most of the time I didn’t like it. It has mostly been my experience that “office” is just another word for “hell” or “prison.” The best offices to work in are the ones where you have lots of freedom and the worst are the ones where freedom, as a word and a concept, is completely unknown.

I’ve worked at a number of contract positions, meaning that I was part of the organization but not “altogether” a part of the organization. I was, of course, expected to abide by all the rules of the company (start times, codes of conduct, breaks, dress code, etc.) but was excluded from company benefits, social functions and perquisites. If the company was closed for the afternoon so employees could attend the funeral of a fallen executive, for example, I would, as a contractor, have my pay docked, while the regular employees didn’t. Also, being a contractor means that one is completely expendable. If a contract employee’s work is in any way unsatisfactory (and even if it isn’t), he can be removed so fast he won’t even know what happened, with as little fanfare as the changing of a light bulb. So, in a phrase, being a contractor means I am a disposable commodity. If I have human feelings, they’re going to be trampled on.

The best contract position I had lasted for three years. I know I was a fool for hanging around that long, but I was promised a permanent position that never happened. I liked the job—or anyway, could tolerate it—because we had a company cafeteria and a four-day work-week, but also because I had a boss who didn’t much care what I did as long as I did the work I was supposed to do. It was a congenial—some might even say permissive—environment and I probably would have stayed until I died in harness, but my boss (the man who hired me and authorized my pay) was fired for some naughtiness or other, and the corporate robot who took his place decided there was no room in the company for me. (He never liked me, anyway, and the feeling was mutual.)

If you are NOT a contractor, of course, that means you are a “regular” or a “permanent” company employee, which in corporate language very often means “slave” or “possession that we can do with as we please.” At company XYZ, for example, I was never supposed to think for myself or make decisions—that was done for me by a person far superior to me, a manager. I almost felt like I was in third grade again because the manager was breathing down my neck all the time, watching my every move, chewing me out for any little thing. (When I was on kitchen duty, for example, I was chewed out for going to the kitchen to clean up too early, because the three of us who were assigned were supposed to do it as a “team.”) We had endless meetings, some of them conducted over the phone, where we had to sit and listen to some blowhard gasbag of a manager (one of those “superior” people) think out loud, sometimes for as long as two-and-a-half hours. (Of course, nothing was ever accomplished at these meetings.) When the meeting was finally over, I found I had fallen behind on meeting my “deadline.” Guess what the solution was to that? I was supposed to catch up on the work on my own time! (Why else did I have that laptop computer that I was supposed to carry around with me all the time?) If they could figure out a way to get people to work in their sleep, they would do it. They’re working on it, I’m sure.

Of course, managers are notoriously cloven-hooved nincompoops who have no clue about human psychology or how to deal with people. (Some of them don’t even know the difference between “there and “their,” let alone “affect” and “effect.”) They don’t seem to realize that if they treat people like shit, they will get shit in return. You reap what you sow. The good manager, and there are a few of them, knows to treat people the way he himself wants to be treated. It’s so simple. If a manager is liked and respected, he will get so much more from people than if he is hated.

The office, for me, is a very unnatural environment that brings out the worst in people. When you are thrown in with a bunch of office people, strangers with whom you have nothing in common, you learn almost by instinct which ones are to be avoided. You are naturally distrustful of the people who “love” their jobs (or say they do) and believe the company is sacrosanct. (I call these people “abiders”—for them there is no other religion.) They have usually been brainwashed to the point where you can no longer have any possible human connection with them. They believe that every company rule, no matter how stupid, is to be obeyed. If they see you committing some minor infraction or other (he took two ink pens instead of one), they will more likely than not tell on you, just like on the playground in second grade. They cringe if you indulge in any kind of bitchy humor at the expense of the company or its management. They take their jobs so seriously that they become overwrought and face potential nervous collapse if something isn’t done the way they think it should be. They are the watchdogs of those of us who don’t give a shit. Stay away from these people. If you ever hand one of them a knife, you will be sure to find it sticking in your back.

A common question that’s asked in job interviews is, “What is your ideal work environment?” One time when I was asked this question, I said to the female interviewer, “Freedom.” To which she responded, “We don’t have any.” I didn’t get the job, even though I was well qualified for it.

And that brings me to my favorite kind of job, the job where there are no ringing phones, no yak-yakking people, no meetings with a nauseating number of clichés and buzz words spoken, no people (mostly women) complaining about how cold they are while I am dying from how hot it is in the place, no getting up extremely early in the morning, no traffic jams going to or from work, no petty jealousies, no backbiting, no whining, no adult babies, no wishing I was someplace else, no clockwatching, no pretending to be busy when I’m not, no pretending I like something or somebody I don’t, no “Sunday blues” because I have to go to work on Monday, no evenings getting ready for—and dreading—the next day of hell. I control the temperature (a little on the cool side, summer or winter). If my phone is ringing, I don’t have to answer it because it is, after all, my phone. I can work in my bathrobe all day, take extra long lunches, and can take a nap whenever I feel like it. I can have music playing (Mozart, Bach, Glenn Miller, Peggy Lee, Paul Whiteman, or whatever) while I work—or not—and I control what kind of music I listen to without having to defer to anybody else’s preferences. This sounds like heaven, doesn’t it? It sounds a lot like home.

January 16, 2014January 16, 2014 by allen0997

Lone Survivor ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Lone Survivor ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

Mark Wahlberg plays Marcus Luttrell, one of a group of Navy Seals sent on a dangerous mission in Afghanistan to remove a terrorist who routinely kills U.S. marines. Five of the Navy Seals are cut off in rough mountainous terrain and find themselves outmanned and outgunned by Afghan Taliban fighters. (When they encounter two young boys and an old man, apparently innocently herding goats, they are faced with the difficult dilemma of killing them because they are the enemy or letting them go, knowing they will alert the enemy of their presence.) Lone Survivor is based on a book of the same name by Marcus Luttrell, the only Navy Seal to survive the ordeal. After the others have been killed one by one, Luttrell, himself wounded, is taken in by non-Taliban Afghans acting in accordance with an ancient code of honor. He would not have survived otherwise.

Lone Survivor is not exactly “enjoyable” in the usual way. It’s grim and bloody and might give you a headache. We get a glimpse in the beginning of the movie of how Navy Seals are trained for the difficult missions they will undertake. Being a Navy Seal takes a special kind of person, especially the part of the training where you are tied up, thrown into a pool and told, “Now you’re going to see what it’s like to not be able to breathe.” (Do something to help me!)

Lone Survivor, like other realistic war movies before it, shows us how hellish war is and what a toll it takes on those who fight. It’s not just a bunch of pouty Calvin Klein models playing soldier-boy dress-up for the edification of the gals back home.

January 12, 2014February 4, 2014 by allen0997

Mr. Woodbine is Here

Mr. Woodbine is Here ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

The nurse came in and took Erwin’s blood pressure. He opened one eye and looked at her and asked if he was dead yet. She ignored him and a little while later she was back again, fussing with the equipment beside the bed, turning dials and flipping switches and writing things down on her clipboard. A clear bag of liquid hung on a pole beside the bed and drained into his arm. He wanted to ask what it was but he was too weak to get the words out. He was sure he was dying, but he told himself he didn’t really mind. Life was far too much trouble, anyway.

In between times when the nurse was fussing someplace else, he saw people in the room with him. They moved quietly around the bed, as if they were keeping watch or waiting—for what he didn’t know. He couldn’t see them very well, but he knew they were there. (Sometimes one of them would lean over and look closely into his face.) If he tried to speak to them, they withdrew. He wanted only to say hello.

One morning after he had been given a sponge bath (he was beyond embarrassment), he opened his eyes and saw a strange man standing at the foot of the bed looking at him—strange because Erwin had never seen him before but strange also because he was wearing a double-breasted, pin-striped suit with a red carnation.

“Who are you?” Erwin asked in his faint voice.

“How are you feeling, kid?” the man asked.

“Feel stupendous.”

“You know you were shot three times?”

“Feels like more.”

“You know who did it?”

“Not telling.”

“You had surgery to remove the bullets.”

“They didn’t need to bother. I know I’m going to die.”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not here to say one way or another.”

“You a doctor?”

“No, my name is Mr. Woodbine.”

“You the angel of death?”

“No, but I appreciate the compliment.”

“The undertaker?”

“No, no, no.” He took a cigar out of his pocket, rolled it around between his fingers, and lit it.

“You’re not supposed to smoke.”

“Well, I won’t tell if you don’t.”

“You’re police, aren’t you?”

“No, but I will tell you that I’m closer to being the angel of death than an officer of the law.”

“I give up then. I don’t feel like guessing anymore.”

“You give up too easily,” Mr. Woodbine said with a little laugh. He puffed on the cigar and blew a big cloud of blue smoke out over the bed.

“That ugly old nurse with the red hair is really mean,” Erwin said. “If she comes in and sees you smoking, she’ll probably stab you.”

“I’m not worried about her.”

“Who are those people standing behind you?”

“Oh, they’re nobody.”

“Well, if they’re there, they must be somebody.”

“They’re just curious. They don’t have much to do with their time and they want to know what’s going on.”

“That doesn’t tell me who they are.”

“They’re people you don’t ordinarily see unless you’re in the state you’re in.”

“Dying, you mean?”

“You said it. I didn’t.

“Tell me more.”

Mr. Woodbine opened his mouth to speak again, but the ugly nurse with the red hair came in and he left. When she pulled back the sheet and started poking at Erwin’s legs, he said, “Do you smell cigar smoke?”

“Why? Have you been smoking?”

“Not me.”

“If you smoke in this room, you’ll set off the sprinklers and that will make certain people very unhappy.” She pointed at the ceiling.

“I’ll tell him.”

“Who?”

“That man that was just here.”

“If anybody was smoking,” she said, “I would know it. I’ve got a nose like a bloodhound.”

“Am I going to die?”

“You don’t think I’d tell you, do you?”

He went to sleep again and a large, indeterminate chunk of time passed, maybe days or maybe only hours. Once when he awoke, he was aware of rain pattering against the window and then of Mr. Woodbine sitting in the chair beside the bed smoking his cigar.

“How are you feeling now, son?” Mr. Woodbine asked.

“How do you get in here all dressed up like that, smoking that cigar? Don’t the nurses try to stop you?”

“They don’t see me.”

“Well, that must be convenient. You’ll have to let me in on some of your secrets.”

“There’s nobody around. I thought we could talk a little more.”

“What time is it?”

“Does it matter?”

“No.”

“Tell me how you came to be shot.”

“An argument over money.”

“Ah!”

“And not very much money, either.”

“Not worth dying for?”

“If I live, I’m going to go find the rat that shot me and shoot him. Only I’m going to do it right. I’ll make sure he’s dead.”

“How do you know he’s not in police custody already for shooting you?”

“Maybe he is. I don’t know anything about what’s going on out there.” He pointed feebly toward the window. “The police were here asking me questions but I wouldn’t tell them anything. I want to take care of that rat myself. I never liked that guy anyway.”

“Revenge will be sweet?”

“It already is, just thinking about it.”

“What if I told you he’ll be taken care of and you don’t need to bother yourself?”

“I’m still going to kill him, except I’m going to make him suffer.”

“The way you’re suffering now?”

“Only worse.”

“Even if you live, you might not walk again.”

“I can kill the son of a bitch from a sitting position.”

“I have no doubt.”

“Why am I telling you all this?” Erwin said. “I don’t even know who you are!”

“It’s all right, because I know you.”

“I never saw you before in my life.”

“You have, many times, but you aren’t able to remember. I was there the time you nearly drowned in the swimming pool in high school. Remember?”

“I remember the incident but I don’t remember you.”

“Some of our memories are blocked out. The ones we’re not supposed to remember, for one reason or another.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

“Not the first time and certainly not the last.”

“Tell those people to stay away from me. They’re getting on my nerves.”

“You just rest now. I think I hear that mean nurse coming.”

Anytime he was conscious, he expected to see Mr. Woodbine again, but Mr. Woodbine came no more.

Finally the day came when he arose from the bed on his own without any nurses fussing around him. His clothes were there, draped neatly over the chair. His wallet, glasses and keychain were on the table beside the bed where he would be sure to see them. He knew that he was being allowed to leave the hospital. Everything that was wrong with him had been fixed. He was renewed. He was going to have a fresh start. All his thoughts of revenge were gone. He didn’t even remember what had brought him to the hospital in the first place. He couldn’t wait to get outside and breathe the fresh air, even if it did smell like bus fumes. He jumped into his clothes excitedly.

He was going to tell the nurses goodbye as he walked past, but they were busy and didn’t look at him. Instead of waiting for the elevator, he walked down the five flights of stairs to the street. It felt so good to use his legs! Who said he might not ever walk again?

It was a brilliantly sunny day. As he walked down the broad steps of the hospital, he saw Mr. Woodbine waiting for him at the curb. They got into a waiting car and, as the car sped away, he lowered the window to feel the rush of air in his face. He was leaving pain and suffering behind. His problems, at last, were at an end.

January 10, 2014January 16, 2014 by allen0997

People are Talking

People are Talking ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

It was a slow day. A boy came in to buy a reed for his clarinet. A woman brought her daughters in to look at pianos with no intention of buying. A man came in to inquire about selling a violin he had that belonged to his brother who had just died. A couple of other people came in looking for certain classical recordings, one Bach and one Sibelius. Then it was time for lunch.

Roberta was alone in the shop, so she couldn’t leave. She sat on a high stool behind the counter, where she could see the door, and ate the lunch she had brought. While she ate, she looked over the morning paper. When she was just about finished, the wife of the store’s owner came in.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Doheny,” Roberta said pleasantly.

“I want to have a talk with you,” Mrs. Doheny said. “I’m glad there’s no one here.”

“Whatever would you want to talk to me about?” Roberta asked, her smile fading because Mrs. Doheny seemed angry about something.

“I’ll bet you already know.”

“Why, no, I don’t!”

“You know, of course, that my husband is a married man?” Mrs. Doheny said. She leaned forward on the counter, her face uncomfortably close to Roberta’s.

“Yes.”

“I just wanted to make sure you are aware of that fact.”

“I’ve worked for him for two years. How could I not know he’s married?”

“And we have two children in high school.”

“Yes.”

“I own half of this store. I have as much say over what goes on here as my husband does.”

“Yes?”

“I could fire you without batting an eyelash but I thought it only fair to warn you first. If you don’t heed the warning, then I fire you!”

“Warn me about what?”

“Your relationship with my husband is to remain purely a professional one. If it goes any farther than that, I have no other choice but to take action.”

“What action? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You and my husband were seen together, more than once, outside the store.”

“Seen by whom?”

“Never mind who it was. You just need to know that people are not as stupid as you seem to think they are.”

“What makes you think I have any interest in your husband?”

“People are talking!”

“What people?”

“Those in a position to know.”

“Oh, I think I’m starting to see it now. I’ll bet it’s that girl, that Stephanie, that he fired a while back for stealing things when she was alone in the store, isn’t it? She’s your niece or something, as I remember.”

“You don’t think I’d tell you who it is, do you?”

“I knew she was stealing and I told her if she didn’t stop I was going to tell on her. The next time I knew she was doing it, I went to Mitchell and told him about it and he fired her, niece or no niece.”

“Oh, it’s ‘Mitchell’ now, is it?”

“If you’ll excuse me, Mrs. Doheny, I’m not going to talk to you any further. This conversation is at an end.”

“You’re not going to get rid of me that easily!”

“If you have suspicions about anything, why don’t you talk to your husband about it and leave me out of it?”

“You don’t think I’d believe his lies, do you?”

“You’re a very disturbed woman, Mrs. Doheny. I feel sorry for your husband. He’s a nice man.”

“Why, you stupid little bitch! I could buy and sell you ten times over!”

A customer came in and Mrs. Doheny went into the back of the store where no one could see her. When the customer left a few minutes later, she re-emerged, her face pale and puffy from crying.

“You don’t look very busy,” she said as she prepared to leave. “I don’t think you’re earning your pay.”

She pushed over a display case with glass shelves, causing a tremendous crash. The display case broke and the merchandise scattered over a good part of the store.

“That will be deducted from your pay, of course!” she said, as she went out the door.

While Roberta was sweeping up the mess, she cut the first two fingers of her right hand. She went into the bathroom to hold her hand under the faucet, not caring if anybody came in or not—if they did, they could help themselves to anything they wanted as far as she was concerned.

The rest of the afternoon passed slowly. Right before closing time, Mitchell Doheny came in. He noticed right away that the display case was gone.

“What happened?” he asked.

“It fell over and broke,” Roberta said.

“By itself?”

“I was nowhere near it when it happened.”

“I’ll have to order a new one,” he said.

As she was preparing to leave for the day, he came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. She wasn’t used to being touched and flinched.

“Would you like to have dinner with me to celebrate?” he asked.

“Celebrate what?”

“The end of the week, I suppose.”

“I have nowhere else I have to be,” she said.

Instead of having hamburgers at the diner, they went to an Italian restaurant with real Italian cuisine, live music, and checkered tablecloths.

“How did things go for you in the store today?” he asked, as they sipped wine and waited for their food.

“All right,” she said. “A little slow.”

“I’m thinking about opening another store across town. How would you like to manage it?”

“We’ll see. Could we talk about something other than business?”

“What else is there?”

“I want to show you something,” she said.

She opened her purse and held up the small handgun she always carried, wrapped loosely in a headscarf.

He laughed when he saw the gun. “Are you planning on shooting somebody with that?” he asked.

“Only if I have to.”

“Be sure and tell me if it’s going to be me,” he said. “At least give me a chance to run.”

It was just starting to rain when they left the restaurant. She could easily have walked home, but he insisted on taking her.

When they pulled up in front of her building, she turned to thank him for the ride.

“I could really use a cup of coffee,” he said, “to clear my head.”

“You know I don’t drink coffee,” she said.

“Yes, I know, but you keep some on hand for guests, don’t you?”

“Guests like you?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to come up?”

“I can see we’re thinking along the same lines.”

She turned on all the lights in the little apartment and turned on some music they both liked, a small ensemble with Benny Goodman so mellow on clarinet. While the coffee brewed, he made himself comfortable on the couch.

She went and sat beside him. He put his arm around her and started to pull her toward him, but she disengaged herself and got up and went back into the kitchen. When she came back with his cup of coffee, he took a sip and set the cup down. He reached for her and began kissing her, hurting her in a way, but she didn’t make him stop as she had always done before.

January 3, 2014January 16, 2014 by allen0997

Inside Llewyn Davis ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Inside Llewyn Davis ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

From the creative genius of Joel and Ethan Coen comes Inside Llewyn Davis, a story about a down-on-his-heels folk singer in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1961. Oscar Isaac (who I’ve seen in other movies, usually a villain) plays Llewyn Davis, who, despite his obvious talent as a singer, is in no way a “success.” (He was part of a singing duo but his singing partner committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge.) He doesn’t have a winter coat in the freezing New York winter, but a coat is not his most pressing need. He doesn’t even have a home, so he sleeps on the couches of “friends” until they get tired of him and kick him out. He is irresponsible and, in fact, hardly seems to be able to get along at all, especially in a profession that has as high a rate of failure as his does. A sort of girlfriend named Jean, who he may or may not have impregnated, tells him he’s “King Midas’s idiot brother.”

He does, in fact, seem hapless in everything he does. He has a misadventure with a cat belonging to an acquaintance on whose couch he spends the night. He loses the cat, of course, and picks up a cat on the street a day or two later that he thinks is the cat but in fact turns out to be a different cat (a female). He argues with his sister, who tells him she doesn’t want him in her house. He takes verbal abuse from Jean, while making plans to abort the baby she’s carrying that might be his, but, then again, probably isn’t. On the way to Chicago to see about a job, he ends up in a car with the strange Roland Turner (played by John Goodman), a dope addict who can’t walk without the use of canes, and Turner’s “valet,” named Johnny Five (Garrett Hedland), a Jack Kerouac-like character. The job in Chicago doesn’t work out, so he hitches a ride back to New York with a New Jersey boy who hasn’t had any sleep. (I’m not sure what the animal is that he accidentally runs over in the car at night, and I’m not sure what it means, but I found that episode a little unsettling.)

Inside Llewyn Davis has to be one of the most interesting and original movies of the year, told in the inimitable Coen style. (Nobody else even comes close.) I was glad that the cat, named Ulysses, makes it back home (no thanks to Llewyn), but I was sorry for the other cat that Llewyn had to leave behind. Let’s hope that everything turned out well for her.

December 31, 2013January 1, 2014 by allen0997

New York Mosaic ~ A Capsule Book Review

New York Mosaic ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Her name was Mary Britton Miller but she wrote under the name Isabel Bolton, a little-known American writer who lived from 1883 to 1975. She wrote children’s poetry and stories and a handful of novels. Three of her short novels (Do I Wake or Sleep, The Christmas Tree, and Many Mansions) have been collected into one 400-page volume under the title New York Mosaic.

Not much happens in Do I Wake or Sleep (first published in 1946), the first of the three short novels in New York Mosaic. The story (or what there is of one) centers around an “older” woman named Millicent. She has come from humble beginnings but has somehow managed to live in a luxurious New York apartment amid the skyscrapers. She and all her friends are angst-ridden because World War II is in progress and they are all worried about the fate of the world. Millicent’s friend Bridget has a retarded daughter living in Vienna (“my little cretin”) who might be in danger because she’s living with Jewish relatives, and the Nazis…well, you know what the Nazis were doing. In spite the danger that Bridget’s daughter might be facing, Bridget is “gay” all the time, attending parties in her fancy clothes and running around with the smart set. Bridget tells her friends that being a society girl is the only way she can deal with the problems of the world. Then there’s Percy Jones, a novelist of some renown and a drunkard. He is fascinated with Bridget and everything about her, but he is so much older than she is and knows he doesn’t have a chance with her. Millicent is concerned about Percy and is thinking about marrying him herself to get him to “settle down” and stop fussing over Bridget. There is an altercation at a cocktail party that comes about as the result of a misunderstanding. Percy is injured when he is knocked to the floor. That is the big dramatic moment in the novel.

The Christmas Tree (first published in 1949) is my favorite of the three novels. It has much more “bite” than the other two. Hildegard Danforth, another New York matron, has a young grandson named Henry and, since it’s Christmas, she wants to give him a beautiful Christmas tree. Larry, Henry’s father and Hildegard’s son, is gay. Anne, Henry’s mother and Larry’s ex-wife, sends Larry a telegram telling him that she has just married a flyer and they are on the way to his mother’s apartment in New York to spend Christmas. (The reason for the telegram isn’t clear, unless it’s to taunt him.) For some unexplainable reason, Larry also heads for New York for Christmas. He has just left his gay lover, Gerald Styles, and doesn’t seem to know where to go or what to do. Gerald follows Larry to New York without Larry knowing. All the characters converge on Hildegard’s apartment on Christmas Eve. When Henry sees Larry, his father, he wants nothing to do with him and tells him he hates him. Larry is crushed while the stepfather seems very smug. The tragedy that occurs on the terrace, sixteen flights up, is probably not what you would expect for a novel from the 1940s.

In Many Mansions (first published in 1952), an eighty-year-old woman, Margaret Sylvester, is re-reading a novel she wrote about her life when she was younger and is reflecting on all the things that happened to her in her life. She is born into a wealthy New York family where everybody has plenty of money and plenty of leisure to do as they please. When she is a young woman, she has a summertime romance with an uncle by marriage and finds herself pregnant. Her family is forgiving, but they whisk her off to Europe for a year or so, where she gives birth to the baby without anybody knowing. The baby is put up for adoption and it is as if the entire episode never happened. (The baby’s father, her uncle, never knows.) Her life after the baby takes a different course than what is expected of a girl of her class. She has plenty of money to live on, but she takes up with some radicals and union organizers and becomes politically active with the intention of ending war, improving conditions for workers, and making the world a better place. Her family doesn’t approve. During this time, she has “very close” relationships with other woman (read into that what you will). Years later, after she has moved on from political activism, she buys a large old house, which she renovates to her own use. She rents her basement apartment to a young man, who promptly, against Miss Sylvester’s wishes, moves his pregnant girlfriend in with him. By a quirk of fate, she discovers that the young man was the baby she gave up for adoption all those years ago. He never knows that she is his mother, but she settles a large sum of money, apparently anonymously, on his child, her grandchild.

Isabel Bolton’s writing is dense, wordy, old-fashioned by today’s standards, and not easy to read or digest. She loves the compound-complex sentence with many clauses. With a lot of her sentences, you have to go back and break down the various clauses to figure out what she is saying. For the serious reader, New York Mosaic is engaging enough to recommend it, but the casual reader will probably find it not worth the effort.

December 31, 2013December 31, 2013 by allen0997

American Hustle ~ A Capsule Movie Review

American Hustle ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

American Hustle lays bare all the tackiness of the 1970s. Irving Rosenfeld (played by Christian Bale) has the ugliest men’s hairdo of the year (it must be seen to be believed). He owns a chain of drycleaning stores, but his real enterprises are loan sharking and art forgery. He promises desperate people that he will try to get loans for them (these are people who can’t get loans anyplace else), but he doesn’t even try—he only takes his “non-refundable” fee of five thousand dollars and lies to them. His motto is that desperate people will believe what they want to believe.

When Irving meets Lady Edith Greenleaf (Amy Adams), an English woman with “London banking connections,” he has more than met his match. (She’s not English and her name is not Edith Greenleaf, but we don’t know that until later.) Edith is smart and just as conniving as Irving is. As a team, they can fleece millions from unsuspecting suckers. The two of them fall in love, but Irving has a problem: a volatile wife, Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence), who says she will never divorce him because there has never been a divorce in her family. She has a son, Danny, whom Irving has adopted as his own. She uses Danny as leverage in her battles between herself and Irving. Appearances to the contrary, Rosalyn is smart and, although very odd, she has a streak of decency. She is, in a way, Irving’s conscience. It’s ironic that the two women in Irving’s life are both smarter than he is.

Enter Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), a hip young man with gold chains and permed hair. (He puts his hair up at night in little curlers.) Irving and Edith take him into their confidence; they believe he is one of them. When Richie finds out enough about Irving and Edith’s crooked enterprises, he reveals himself as an agent of the FBI. He threatens to expose them unless they will help him bring down the nest of vipers that is the New Jersey political machine. His target is one Carmine Polito, the mayor of Camden. Mayor Polito is interested in revitalizing and restoring Atlantic City and he doesn’t much care how corrupt the enterprise is. At this point, organized crime enters the scene. There are payoffs and bribes to be paid, some involving members of Congress and the U.S. Senate.

American Hustle is about human failings, such as greed and incompetence, but also about people’s willingness to be “conned,” even when all the indications are there that things are not what they appear to be. (“People believe what they want to believe.”) Although a fictional story, American Hustle is based on the Abscam scandal of the late 1970s. If scandal involving high-ranking members of government makes good material for movies, future filmmakers will have a mother lode of material to draw from, what with current and ongoing government scandals. I don’t know about you, but I love seeing sleazy, self-serving politicians getting what they deserve.

December 21, 2013December 21, 2013 by allen0997

Dallas Buyers Club ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Dallas Buyers Club ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

Dallas Buyers Club is set the 1980s and is based on a true story. Hard-living Texas rodeo cowboy Ron Woodruff (played by Matthew McConaughey) finds himself very sick. When he is found to have AIDS as a result of his sexual promiscuity, he is given thirty days to live. He hears about a new drug called AZT that has been proven effective in tests with laboratory animals, but the problem with AZT is that it hasn’t been approved for use by humans. By the time it goes through all the government channels and is finally approved, it will be too late to help Ron and thousands of other AIDS patients who might benefit from it. Ron bribes a hospital employee to provide him with AZT, but after he has taken it for a while he finds it doesn’t do him any good.

From that point on, Ron is more resourceful than we might have given him credit for. He refuses to give up and die in a few weeks. He researches his disease (this is before the Internet) and discovers just what his limited options are. He travels to Mexico, where he might buy certain drugs that are not available in the U.S., and befriends an American doctor there who is willing to help him. He travels to Japan, Canada, Israel, and other countries, where he buys large quantities of the drugs, proteins, and vitamins that might help him and others. He is, of course, operating outside the law.

He establishes what becomes known as the Dallas Buyers Club. Instead of selling drugs to AID patients, he sells memberships that allow patients to draw from his stock of drugs whatever they need. The government is there to thwart him at every turn. If they can’t shut down his operation, they will get him for income tax evasion or any other trumped-up charge they can think of.

Other standout characters in Dallas Buyers Club include Raymond/Rayon (played by Jared Leto), a transsexual who dresses and acts like a woman (though still a man), with AIDS contracted through intravenous drug use. Ron is at first repelled by Rayon’s feminine behavior, but eventually they become friends and business partners of a sort. Eve Saks (played by Jennifer Garner) is a compassionate doctor who helps Ron and in doing so places her job and her standing in the medical community in jeopardy.

Dallas Buyers Club is grim, as stories about sick people who cannot get well always are, but it is a story that demonstrates the value of perseverance and of someone who is willing to operate outside the system. Whether Ron Woodruff is right or wrong in bucking the system, he is able to extend his own life, and the lives of others, far beyond what would have been possible through conventional methods.

December 19, 2013December 19, 2013 by allen0997

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug ~ A Capsule Movie Review

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

The epic quest begun in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (released one year ago at this time) is continued in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, which is part two in The Hobbit trilogy. The third part, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, will be released in December of next year.

As you recall (or maybe you don’t), twelve dwarves are on their way to reclaim their homeland and their gold from a very large, flying, fire-breathing dragon sleeping inside a mountain. They have enlisted the aid of Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit, who is a burglar. Once they get to the mountain, they will need Bilbo to use his skills to get a large white stone, called the Arkanstone, from the extravagant piles of gold and riches the dragon stands guard over inside the mountain. (It seems they need the stone to carry out their plans.) The dragon is sleeping most of the time, but if anybody tries to mess with his riches, he is sure to wake up and be very unpleasant.

On their long journey to the mountain, the dwarves encounter Orcs, a warlike race of creatures who want to kill them. The elves don’t like dwarves, either, but they assist the dwarves because they dislike Orcs even more. (The enemy of my enemy is my friend.) In one standout scene, the dwarves are captured by giant spiders who wrap them in cocoons (presumably to keep them as a snack for a later time). The elves assist the dwarves to escape the spiders, as does Bilbo. Time and again, Bilbo displays unexpected bravery and resourcefulness. When the dwarves are trying to open the door into the mountain where the gold is, which, they are told, will open with a key by the last light of the day, Bilbo figures out that the door will open (after the dwarves have given up) by the light of the moon rather than the sun. Where would they be without Bilbo?

At the end of The Desolation of Smaug, Bilbo and the dwarves have inadvertently unleashed the death-dealing dragon on Middle Earth. As the dragon flies off to wreak all kinds of havoc, Bilbo says, “What have we done?” We’ll have to wait until December 2014 to find out.

The trilogy is based, of course, on books by J.R.R. Tolkien, the premier fantasy writer of the twentieth century. I’m not a big fan of this kind of fantasy, but these movies are beautifully made in 3D and well worth seeing. Even if you don’t care that much for the story and think you have had your fill of hobbits, dwarves, elves, and wizards, there’s no more beautiful place to visit than Middle Earth.

December 13, 2013December 14, 2013 by allen0997

Boardwalk Empire, Season Four ~ A Capsule Review

Boardwalk Empire, Season Four ~ A Capsule Review by Allen Kopp

Boardwalk Empire on HBO is the best show on television. Of course, I might be a little prejudiced in that opinion because it’s the only show I watch. It just completed its fourth season, I’ve seen every episode, and I think it’s better than ever. It’s involving, beautifully written and beautifully played. The characters are well-rounded and believable. For the most part they are not “good” people, but human. We understand their jealousy, greed, hatred, desire, revenge, love, or whatever it is that motivates them. We don’t want to be like them (could any of us get away with it?), but we love watching them, including their killing without remorse. How bad can a person be? Apparently there’s no limit.

And then there’s the “look” of the show. Obviously a lot of research has gone into getting each detail historically accurate for the period. Each scene is beautifully appointed and you wonder how they can create those fabulous sets, some of which are just seen for a few seconds. (Is it all computer-generated illusion?) The music is all from the period and there’s lots of it and it always fits the scene. So, even if you don’t like the story, it’s a feast for the eyes and ears, especially if you, like me, find the 1920s fascinating.

There were some interesting developments in season four. Gillian Darmody, that youthful grandmother, is addicted to heroin. The new man in her life, Roy Phillips (who isn’t what he appears to be), helps her kick the habit. While she is fighting for custody of her grandson, Tommy, a very bad thing that she has done in one of the earlier seasons catches up with her. Nucky Thompson runs a nightclub, The Onyx Club, with his business partner Chalky White (whites only, black performers). Daughter Maitland, a singer at the club, is a protégé of the mysterious Dr. Narcisse, another man who isn’t what he appears to be. Dr. Narcisse and Chalky White are rivals (they both want the same things). When Chalky begins an adulterous affair with Daughter Maitland, it intensifies the dislike between the two men. Nucky has a new love interest, Sally Wheet, whom he meets in Florida when he is there on “business.” His wife, Margaret, has receded into the background with her two children and just plays a minimal part in season four. Nucky’s nephew, Will, accidentally kills a fellow student in college when a prank goes too far. When Will is caught, Nucky uses his considerable influence to get him off. Will doesn’t want to go to school but wants to be a gangster like his father and his uncle.

Among those who meet their ends in season four are Mr. Purnsley, Maybelle White, Agent Knox, Dean O’Banion, Frank Capone, and a host of minor characters. Eddie Kessler, Nucky’s faithful valet, commits suicide when he is bullied by two federal agents into giving an insignificant confession against Nucky. So long, Eddie!

And then there’s Richard Harrow. From the first time he appears in season one in what was supposed to be a minor role, he dominates every scene he’s in with his quiet dignity. After we see him a couple of times, we see beneath the tin mask he wears that hides his horribly disfigured face. He has lived through the horrors of war and returns to a world in which he has no place. For a while he is a hired killer but that isn’t really who he is. He wants nothing more than to have a family and to be normal. When he dies at the end of season four, it’s for love. Not for romantic love—that would be too silly—but for a more profound kind of love. As he’s dying, he sees himself with his handsome face intact, returning “home” to those who love him. A tragic hero in the end. Does TV get any better than this?

November 30, 2013December 3, 2013 by allen0997