Lenten Sacrifices

Greetings. Thanks for all the attention Letter #86 brought last week. Hard act to follow, but here’s a try, #87.

Lenten regimen

If you’ve visited the leather store, you have quite likely met our friend and neighborhood character, Al.

Yesterday, Al made a stop here to check on us. I asked, more or less to pass the time, “Al, what are you giving up for Lent?”

I shoulda known better than to ask. Al’s quick one-word response: “Bitterness.”

Now, I had been at a loss as to what might be my Lenten sacrifice this year. One year, as part of my attempt, I gave up coffee, which was good because I’m still not drinking coffee except when I’m under the influence of the Muellers.

I feel better and I’m positive my health is better without coffee. But then, I don’t have coffee to give up any more. I had to find something else for ‘09.

One year, I determined for myself what I thought would be a significantly meaningful act of self-denial. I gave up being mad at my friend Mikey.

The instant I hit on the idea and approved it as my Lenten sacrifice, the home phone rang. It was Mikey. About 30 seconds into the conversation, I felt the blood pressure rising in the veins in my neck.

A few seconds later, I said something rude and slammed down the phone. So much for not being angry at Mikey during Lent. (Yes I went to confession and it was declared venial but applicable.)

So this year, taking Al’s lead, and having learned from being instantly, sinfully mad at Mikey, here is a list of things I’m going to try to give up until Lent ends – and beyond:

Bitterness, pridefulness, gloating, gluttony, leering, mimicry, sneering, cowardliness, sarcasm, impatience, back orders, avarice, indebtedness, wastefulness, sloth, irreverence, remorse and unreasonable yearning.

Pray for me.

Then, just because it’s easy, I’ll throw in genealogy. Yep, I’m giving up genealogy for Lent. Other easy ones: tobacco and anything that says “Yamaha” on it. No problem. Got it handled.

Cinema verite’

For some reason “The Loud Family” popped into my head, setting off thoughts about cinema verite’.

A very early spin on today’s “reality” films was Alan Funt’s “Candid Camera.” Funt’s entrapment technique bordered on mean-spiritedness, but always included a kiss-and-make-up scene after someone was made to seem foolish, caught by a hidden camera.

In the 70’s, someone at PBS decided to film the daily life of “The Loud Family,” and to broadcast minimally edited vignettes in weekly episodes. The family name was “Loud,” and they lived up to it.

Turns out, one of the little Loud boys was, err, somewhat more swishy than his brothers. The film’s raison d’etre became obvious at that point – the producers sought to promote the “gay” life on mainstream television. Pshaw. Cinema Verite became Cinema Let’s-Play-Girl. Somewhat more obvious than Sesame Street.

Bounty Hunter is another one in the genre. I especially admire the scenes when Bounty and all his little Hunters stop to pray. Bounty says, “I thank the Lord Jesus for allowing me to be born.”

I take that to be a gritty Pro-Life statement, and give Kudos to Bounty for it. After the prayer, they go out and get some real-life bad-guy, often rounding up rebellious bail-jumping crack whores. What a way of life.

Here’s where TV gets kind of gray for me. I see on one channel a raucous little situation comedy called “Reno 911,” a fictional dramatization about renegade sheriff’s deputies.

Flip the channel one notch and I’ve got “Cops,” supposedly true-life videos, real cops catching real criminals – almost all of whom are black guys.

Where do truth and fiction meet? Philadelphia Meter Maids is probably the juncture. Viewers get to watch all manner of scumbags run out and accost the Meter Maids with all kinds of bogus stories, trying to avoid the parking fine and/or the costly tow.

I especially like the scenes in the impound lot, people arguing with bureaucrats behind security screens. “I gotta get my car so I can pick up the kids from school.” Right. Four hundred dollars later, Daddy drives off to get the kids.

And, you ask, if Mr. Tommy doesn’t have a TV, how does he know about Bounty and the Hunters?

Motels. We stayed a lot in motels over the winter. It’s good to be home.

‘Animation’

The dictionary says “animated cartoon” is a kind of motion picture made by photographing a series of thousands of drawings, each showing a stage of movement slightly changed from the one before so that the figures in them seem to move when the drawings are shown in rapid succession.

The graphics on your cell phone or on your computer are an evolved form of animation. The series of images tricks your eyes into seeing what the eyes interpret as movement.

Anybody out there old enough to remember “dirty comics?” You know, Popeye does Olive Oyle. You flip the pages right to left and watch the figures “move” suggestively. This is a primitive form of animation. Likewise the scandalous “stereoscopic viewers” at amusement parks wherein cardboard images on something like a Rolodex flip past quickly, mimicking “movement.” I once saw the famous Little Egypt belly dancing. Oooh risqué. Oooh sexy.

These devices trick the eye. So do videos, movies, television. Because of the “tricks,” I can’t bring myself to trust television, or movies. There is too much room for intentional misinformation. Take that back. There is too much intentional misinformation.

You just can’t watch something that is presented on a Cathode Ray Screen as “the truth.”

Word of the week: Decimation. I like this one. Latin, of course. “Decem” is Latin for “ten,” as in “December.” Decimation is the military practice of selecting by lot, and killing every tenth one. Sounds just like the Romans.

Hence, to us today decimation means to kill a large part of a group, as in “the soldiers decimated the enemy.” Decimation would always be a good word to use in reference to abortion, because that’s exactly what they’re doing. Except it’s way more than one in ten.

Next week’s word: Mass.

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