My congressman–and aspiring senator–is Mark Kirk.  He represents Illinois’ bland and somewhat smug North Shore suburbs, where our teen drug dealers are just earning the tuition and course credits to become anestheologists.  Here the Republicans are Tories; they will concede that Darwin was right if unfortunately tactless.  (A vice president of the Rotary Club does not want to be reminded of his Australopithecine relatives  in Africa.) This is a bellweather district with a sizable number of Jewish voters.  (I did mention the future anestheologists.)  The pragmatic Mr. Kirk has proved very ecumenical, and gives the impression that he co-sponsored the Torah or at least the Balfour Declaration.

And heretofore Mr. Kirk has also been very fortunate.  The Democratic candidate for the Senate seems to be a 14-year-old you wouldn’t trust with a paper route.  As long as Kirk didn’t swing regressively right and try mating with Sarah Palin, I was thinking of voting for him.  But never underestimate a politician’s vanity.  Kirk decided to inflate his military record.  He actually had one, a reservist in a naval intelligence unit.  The man had to serve in Italy during the Kossovo conflict.  Don’t dismiss his peril; Vesuvius could have erupted.  And his unit received a commendation for its paperwork.  However, Congressman Kirk decided that he alone deserved that award, and claimed it in speeches and in his biography.  Aside from monopolizing the award, he embellished it–anointing himself “Intelligence Officer of the Year.”

What a pity that the Navy’s records did not quite concur with Kirk’s.  The Congressman could denounce the Navy as just a bunch of New York liberals–and he may yet; so far, he says that there was a clerical mistake.  His website stated that he had won “the Intelligence Officer of the Year.”  Apparently, Kirk read it and, since the Internet is renowned for its accuracy, he assumed that it was true and began mentioning his award.   Believe it or not, he is still sticking by that story.  He won’t be getting an Intelligence award this year; but that has never been a criterion for the U.S. Senate.

May 31, 1916:  The Undefeated German Navy

 Consider the greatest naval battles in history (and if this is a first for you, welcome to the introductory course).  Some of these monumental clashes had a profound strategic effect. 

After Salamis in 480 B.C., with the Greek destruction of their fleet, the Persians were left with nothing but their Iranian charm for supplies.  The battle of Actium, in 31 B.C., determined whether the first Roman emperor would be a dissipated has-been or a reptilian youngster.  (Bet on the reptile.)  At Midway in 1942, the Japanese lost four aircraft carriers and the initiative; after that, their strategy was fighting to the death rather than winning.

But other great naval battles really had no practical strategic consequence other than proving which fleet had the bigger ballast.  Lepanto, fought off the coast of Greece in 1571, was just a duel of imperial egos.  The Turks had no plans to invade the western Mediterranean, and the Spanish had no plans to liberate the Eastern Mediterranean.  The naval battle only indicated that God–that day–was more Catholic than Moslem.  Sometimes the motive for battle seems to be masochism.  The French and Spanish had no need to challenge the British at Trafalgar.  Perhaps they wanted to see if Lord Nelson was really that good; he was. 

And the greatest naval battle of World War I–Jutland–was just the fulfillment of a boy’s longstanding fantasy.  Unfortunately, the boy became Kaiser Wilhelm II–and he never grew up.  He wanted a navy that could challenge Britannia’s rule of the sea.  There was no practical purpose for a large German fleet.  Germany had a limited coastline and its neighbors on the Baltic Sea were not maritime threats.  Denmark had been behaving itself since the 12th century.  Perhaps the lumbering, outdated Russian fleet could have attacked Hamburg but only if someone would tow it.  Nein, the only reason for a massive German navy was to gratify the Kaiser’s ego.

Wilhelm may have been a boisterous buffoon but he was too dangerous to ignore.  So Britain had to meet his challenge by constructing  more and larger battleships.  Indeed, meeting the demands of the British navy left shipbuilders short of supplies for other projects.  A firm in Belfast had to cut a few corners in assembling a luxury liner; but if that damn ship hadn’t hit the iceberg, no one would have been the wiser. 

Furthermore, Britain ended its longstanding policy of magnificent disdain of European politics and alliance.  In 1907, it formed a cordial entente with France and Russia.  So, Britain was ready for war.  It merely had to wait for Germany to do something irrevocably stupid, like invading Belgium in 1914.

The German strategy was to goosestep its way to Paris in six weeks.  As far as the German High Command was concerned, the Navy was the Kaiser’s toy.  Nearly two years later, the army was still on its way to Paris.  (It would get there in 1940.)  The British navy was in the North Sea, daring the Kaiserliche Marine to leave port.  On May 31, 1916, the German fleet finally tried to justify its existence.

Off the Danish peninsula of Jutland, the two fleets maneuvered and shot at each other.  At the end of the day, an accountant tallying the corpses and wrecks would have said that Germany won.  With a smaller fleet, it inflicted far more damage, casualties and ship losses on the British.  Yet, the German fleet then retreated to its home ports, never to sail again and leaving the British navy in uncontested controls of the seas.

Ironically, that Fleet would have won the war–if it had been used in 1914.  At the onset of the War, the fleet could have sailed into the North Sea and the English Channel.  Yes, it would have found itself cut off from supplies, outgunned and without access to a friendly port.  What is German for sitting duck?  But so long as the German Navy was still floating between France and Britain, the British would have been unable to send 120,000 men to Belgium and Northern France to stop the German invasion.  Without the added obstacle of the  British army (which the Von Schlieffen plan had failed to calculate) the Germans might well have made their six-week itinerary to Paris.   

So the Kaiser’s navy would have won the war–even if none of the sailors lived to celebrate it.

Today’s  most interesting spam:

Great news! Become an agent for Internet Modeling, and make money recruiting models from your visitors. Easily earn 1,000 dollars per week!

Isn’t it obvious?  Anyone who can expound on the Empress Theodora or Madame de Pompadour has a talent for being a pimp.  I may not have realized it but fortunately the Human Resource department of Internet Modeling wants me in my true vocation. 

Now, I must say that “1000 dollars a week” seems a little meager for a pimp.  Wouldn’t the police expect that much in payoffs?  But perhaps that is just my starting salary–and the real money might be in selling advertising space on my “girls”.  “Tattoo your product here!”

Of course, the real drawback to my being a pimp is that I am such an underachiever.  I keep waiting for the Pulitzer Committee to notice me–and I probably would run the brothel with the same stoic incompetence.  I am also a bit shy–really.  I wouldn’t know how to procure a naive farmgirl at a bus station.   “Have you read Zola’s “Nana?” might not be the most enticing introduction, unless that farmgirl thinks that Nana is an anatomical part.

But, in any case, if you would like me to be your pimp, please let me know.

Let’s not forget the historic significance of this day: https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2008/05/30/on-this-day-in-1431/

Since last January, “Dante’s Inferno” has been available as a video game.  https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2010/01/31/eugenes-inferno/

I don’t know if the designers are planning sequels.  Dante did, and it would be fun watching his avatar  in “Il Paradiso” duel with a three-headed ninja form of the Trinity.

But I am disappointed that other major works of literature have not been adapted to X-Box or Wii.

“Anna Karenina” would be exciting.  I imagine it like Pac-Man: our heroine devouring young bachelors while being pursued by a curmudgeonly husband and divorce lawyers?  Perhaps she could be an action figure like Lara Croft, derailing marriages and trains.

But why let Tolstoy get all the royalties.  Let’s see what we can earn for Ted Dostoyevsky.  In the video game of “Crime and Punishment” the pawnbroker is  trained in the martial arts! And each pawnbroker–Rodya will have a limitless number to kill–becomes progressively more difficult to slay.  Furthermore, each saintly prostitute–Rodya will have a limitless number of them, too–will be progressively more difficult to save.

Dickens is perfectly adaptable for games.  Most of his plots are already labyrinths for the reader.  In “A Tale of Two Cities” why should Sydney Carton go meekly to the guillotine?  Let him take on the population of Paris.  (He could be avenging countless American tourists.)

And if any of these games are successful, then we can adapt them into movies.

May 28, 1588:  The Spanish Armada Sets Sail

Sometimes history and central casting work perfectly.  That was certainly true in the duel between Philip II of Spain and Elizabeth (she doesn’t need further introduction).  He was a grim, repressive soul; even in his choice of  somber clothes, he seemed in perpetual attendance at requiem mass.  She was a brilliant actress who ruled by craft and charm.  Their kingdoms were equally contrasting.  Spain was an empire, commanding the wealth of the New World, and leading the Catholic powers of Europe.  England was an island, an isolated Protestant bastion.  Tyrannical, dogmatic Spain would be the forerunner of totalitarianism. Independent, unfettered England would be the foundation of modern democracy.

From our perspective, this clearly was a war between good and evil.  And from a legal point, there is an equally distinct delineation between right and wrong.  The irony is that Spain was in the right.  English privateers attacked Spanish ships and colonies.  English aid and “volunteers” abetted the Dutch in their rebellion against Spain.  Of course, the British Crown plead ignorance of the privateers while taking its share of the loot and then subsidizing the Dutch rebellion.  The wonder is that Philip showed such patience with the English; he would have been justified going to war years sooner.  But did Philip use that time to carefully plan his attack?  He obviously didn’t.

On this day in 1588 the Spanish Armada set sail for…now, that turned out to be a mystery. The Spanish had built, bought, and borrowed 130 ships but they really had no idea what they were supposed to do with this fleet. Yes, the Spanish intended to conquer England, but the Armada was only a threat in theory. Its purpose was to ferry the Spanish Army of the Duke of Parma across the Channel.

Unfortunately, none of the Spanish planners had the foresight to secure either a deep water port for the fleet to load the troops, or any transports that could ferry the troops to the ships. Philip II, being such a devout Catholic, perhaps thought that his army would walk on the water. So the Armada set sail without any purpose.

On its pointless tour, the Spanish fleet took a beating in the English Channel. The Globe Theater would not be used for bull fights. Then the Armada proceeded to the North Sea, sailing past the mystified Spanish army in the Netherlands. The Duke of Parma might have had better luck using gondolas. The Spanish were not merely inferior sailors; their ships really were unsuited for water, at least the type with waves. The North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean couldn’t have been more Protestant in their reception of the Armada. Most of the Spanish fleet was destroyed in storms.

When Philip saw the meager, battered remnants of his great enterprise, the King refrained from declaring God a heretic. For a rabid bigot, Philip was surprisingly stoic and accepted the debacle with a decorous grace. Even the incompetent admiral was allowed to retire gracefully.

I only wish that Philip had broken into song…

Blue navy blue, I am blue as I can be.

For the Spanish fleet has met defeat

And won’t come back to me.

Those English acts of piracy ar-mada’ning

And instigate this war.

A punitive flotilla would be my planning

Even up the score.

chorus

The naval pride of Spain complying with my wish

For England set asail.

But all of the assailing came from the English.

So now I must bewail.

Chorus

First, my tantrum

I thought that I was a satirist.  It turns out that I was a prophet.  Here is my recent musing on the new opportunities in historical fiction:  histortions. 

Since ”Spartacus” has proved a success, it no doubt will inspire other historical prequels.  I am going to suggest a series on Napoleon, but focused on his sophomore year at the Brienne military academy.  Of course, the dorm chambermaid will be a nymphomaniac, as well as his geometry teacher, music teacher, fencing coach, career counselor and the headmistress.  If HBO produces this series, we can arrange for Napoleon to have an affair with Abigail Adams, too.

“Fast Times at Brienne High” has yet to be picked up–although I imagine some Hollywood producers are discussing it now over lox burritos.  However, get ready for “Teen Caesar”:

Could Zac Efron be set to play Caesar?

No word yet if Zac Efron is set to star, but 17 Again director Burr Steers has been hired to direct a new historical teen drama entitled Emperor: Young Caesar.

The director will helm the adaptation of the first two novels in Conn Iggulden’s historical (and fictional) book series. The series follows the rise of Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar.

William Jarhead Broyles and Stephen Cleopatra Harrigan have scribbled the script, which apparently centres on Julius and Brutus as they join the Roman military. 

Says Steers:

“I’ve always had an interest in Julius Caesar and his formative years and am thrilled to have the opportunity to be part of this project.

“There has never been a film that focuses on Caesar as a young man, and Conn Iggulden, Bill Broyles and Stephen Harrigan have a completely fresh, timely, and exciting take on one of the greatest historical figures of all time.”

Yes, the world has been waiting for a teen buddy movie about Caesar and Brutus.  Imagine the boys surfing down the Tiber. (It would be a lovely nostalgic gesture to have Frankie Avalon play Cicero.)  But there is a slight discrepancy in the age of the two kids.  When Caesar was 14 years old, Brutus was minus 1.  However, there is no reason not to portray Brutus as a wisecracking ovum.  Remember the success of “Look Who’s Talking”.  Fallopian sounds Latin to me, and the tubes might have good acoustics.

But now we resume our regularly scheduled pedantics:

May 27, 1541:  Beheading Behavior

In Tudor England beheading was considered a privilege. It was performed before a select audience in a upper class setting. In return, the victims were expected to behave with stoic dignity. Most did.  Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, definitely was the exception. The frail 67 year-old woman did not want to be executed and would not cooperate. She had to be dragged to the scaffold and would not passively place her head on the block. The executioner required assistance to hold down the struggling lady. She writhed and wiggled so effectively that the axeman missed her neck, slashing instead her shoulder. In the confusion, the Countess tried to make a run for it. She only managed to dodge around the scaffold and she was just one wounded old lady against an armed killer and his staff. The outcome was inevitable but she gave an unprecedented resistance.

Born in 1473, the poor woman had a miserable sense of timing from the start.  By the time she was four, she had been declared a traitor by her uncle King Edward IV–who executed his own brother and stripped the ensuing orphans of their property.  Her nicer uncle was Richard III, who restored young Margaret’s and her brother’s legitimacy and estates.   Margaret’s luck lasted two years–the same length as Richard’s reign.  Being a Yorkist heiress and a legitimate Plantagenet did not improve her prospects with the new king  Henry VII–who was not a legitimate anything.  Her brother Edward would spend the rest of his short life in prison; although mentally-retarded, that was a minor handicap for royalty and his pedigree made him a threat to the Tudors.  Edward was executed in 1499 at the age of 24.  Margaret was kept under a more comfortable confinement until Henry decided her fate–specifically which of his lackeys deserved a rich, young wife. 

The lucky–and unctuously loyal–groom was Henry’s cousin Richard Pole.  Pole married Margaret in 1494, and apparently he did not mind at all.  There were five children within ten years, and I would like to tell you that the Pole family lived happily ever after.  Well, Richard did; he had the prudence to die in 1505.  But Margaret and her children did not.  They  lived on into the reign of Henry VIII.

He was Margaret’s first cousin, once removed, and he took the removal quite seriously.  The Poles were staunch Catholics, and they would be providing executioners with steady work for the next two generations.  Margaret was never implicated in any plots, but her decapitation on May 27, 1541 was Henry’s way of congratulating her son Reginald for becoming a Cardinal. 

The Church beatified her in 1886.  Given her surprising dexterity, you’d think that a Catholic school would have named a gym for her.

Prince of Persia” director worried film may be homogenous

By Reuters

Mike Newell has proven one of Hollywood’s most versatile directors.

After graduating from TV to movies with such hits as “Enchanted April” and “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” the British filmmaker has jumped from a franchise tentpole (“Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”) to a literary drama (“Love in the Time of Cholera”) and now Disney’s “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,” which opens Friday.

Reuters: THIS MOVIE CLEARLY IS MADE FOR A GLOBAL AUDIENCE. AS A FILMMAKER, HOW DO YOU DO THAT WITHOUT MAKING SOMETHING TOO HOMOGENOUS?

Newell: Making it homogenous is a terrible danger. If I’m in the mood to be hyper self-critical, I would say perhaps I allowed (the movie) to become a little homogenous, but I’m not sure.

ARE YOU CONCERNED THAT THE FILM MIGHT BE POST-PRANDIAL?

Newell:  I don’t think that audience will view it as post-prandial but you can never be sure.

BUT HAS THIS ENTIRE GENRE BECOME REDOLENT?

Newell: This film is not.

YOU CAST AN AMERICAN IN THE TITLE ROLE.  IS HE CONVINCINGLY PERSIFLAGE?

Newell: Absolutely.

AND HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH MALAPROPICAL REPORTERS?

Newell: I indulge the morons.

May 25, 1803: The Author Begins His Story

Today is the  birthday of the unfortunate Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). It is fashionable to ridicule him as the worst writer in the history of English. In fact, the novelist and playwright was quite popular in his day.  The young aristocrat may have started as a literary dilettante, dabbling in poetry at Cambridge; but after being disinherited by his family for marrying someone Irish, he had to earn a living.  If his writings were half so romantic as his life, no wonder he was a success.  His acclaim was international.  The young and impoverished Richard Wagner, looking for a story with box opera appeal, adapted Bulwer-Lytton’s novel “Rienzi” into an opera.  (And no doubt he never paid the British novelist a pfenning.) 

With his bloodline, wealth and popularity, Bulwer-Lytton won a seat in Parliament and rose up to the middle ranks of Tory leadership.  He would serve in the cabinet and eventually become a baronet.  (There was another novelist among the young Conservatives, less wealthy and with a far more exotic bloodline, but Mr. Disraeli would also achieve some fame.) 

And there is no reason to think that Bulwer-Lytton wouldn’t have been a best-selling author today.  Consider how many times his novel “The Last Days of Pompeii” has been made into a movie.  His great-great grandson, the Fifth Earl of Lytton, thanks us all for the residuals.  Yet, Edward Bulwer-Lytton now is a figure of ridicule.  One of his passages is cited as an exemplar of horrible writing.  Here it is:

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents–except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

I don’t think that it is terrible at all. Yes, it is florid and overwrought: in other words, typically Victorian.

The greatest of the Victorian writers Charles Dickens would have been just as lavish with adjectives. And his opening scene would have included a colorful lamplighter who would reappear throughout the story, at the most incredible times, with remarkable revelations for the hero. “Many the year ago, before I become a magistrate, I was a lamplighter. One day, while making me rounds, I discovered a foundling. How wert I to know it was me long-lost sister’s child? Which makes you my nephew and ‘eir.”

I really don’t understand why Bulwer-Lytton has become the object of such derision. Perhaps he should have given Mt. Vesuvius an endearing cockney accent.

 ‘Law and Order’ Is Over: Last Episode Tonight

 Narrator: In the criminal justice system, television exploits two separate yet equally important sources: what’s in   The New York Post and what’s taught in the scriptwriting class at Yale. 

Pizza deliveryman:  Ya know, I once delivered to Julian Schnabel.  Pepperoni and black olive.

Doorman:  I bet Marcel Proust woulda ordered in a lot, too.

Pizza deliveryman:  Ya, but reclusive invalids are lousy tippers. 

s.d.  Walking to the elevator, the pizza guy pushes the button. The elevator door opens, revealing the body of “Law and Order” producer Dick Wolfe.

Smarmy young cop wishing he were Jerry Orbach (as do we all) surveys the crime:  80 stab wounds.  Usually, ten is enough to  get you cancelled.  

Exhausted, depressed Lieutenant now fearing her next job will be doing August Wilson plays at Dinner Theaters: He needed just one more season to break the record.  Yes, he was running out of crimes.  We did Leopold and Loeb six times, but we usually cast different actors.  Follow the leads.

Smarmy young cop confronts elderly man at shuffleboard match:  So you were worried that Dick Wolfe was going to break your record. 

Eighty-seven year old James Arness beats up Jeremy Sisto.  (Feel free to applaud.)

Lieutenant visits young smarmy in hospital:  Jack Kevorkian is on You-Tube bragging that he killed Dick Wolfe.

Sam Waterston, in between doing commercials as the upscale Billy Mays, confronts Dr. Kevorkian:  So you are going to claim that this was a mercy killing.

Kevorkian:  For the audience.

From the archives:  https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2008/07/17/eugenes-lunchtime-theater/

And let’s not forgive the historic significance of this day:  https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/05/24/the-art-of-saving-souls-2/

May 22, 1813:  Diaper Gotterdammerung

Today is the birthday of that unsurpassed meister of Teutonic flatulence: Richard Wagner. A traditional way to celebrate would be to mistake London, Rotterdam and Warsaw for candles and then light them.

You could also listen to one of his operas but do you have 36 hours to spare? Let’s compare two hours of Giuseppi Verdi with three hours of Dick Wagner. In “Rigoletto” a malevolent hunchbacked jester plots to avenges his debauched daughter’s honor by killing her seducer–who happens to be jester’s patron–but the infatuated daughter sacrifices her own life to protect her lover. In “Lohengrin” or “Parsifal” or “Siegfried” (Does it make a difference?), a virginal knight spends the first act describing the plot of a previous opera by Wagner. Of course, very little happened in that opera, but Wagner was the pioneer of product placement.

Eventually, usually by the third act, the virginal knight will actually do something. (In the case of “Tristan and Isolde”, the knight loses his adjective.) Unfortunately, the sex in Wagner is just as stupefying as everything else. The composer, with his standard subtlety, emphasizes that love and death are synonymous. Tristan‘s hit single (all two hours of it) is “Liebestod”–which means LoveDeath. How would you like to rate that on Aryan Bandstand?

In real life, however, the pace of Wagner’s life was fast and loose. The High Priest of Holy German Art actually was a deadbeat and a lecher. He constantly “borrowed” money with never an intention to repay. Indeed, he often denounced his benefactors; Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn must have really appreciated the Anti-Semitic remarks. Wagner also “borrowed” other men’s wives, telling the husbands that they were making a sacrifice to his genius.

Wagner’s music may be excruciating, but his life would have made an entertaining operetta.