OK Computer?

“Light the sky and hold on tight

The world is burning down

She’s out there on her own

And she’s alright.”

    “Sunny Came Home,” Shawn Colvin

On the penultimate morning of WXRT’s “40 Years in 40 Days” I heard Shawn Colvin’s song from the 1997 album “A Few Small Repairs” about a woman burning down her house to escape her past.  The title line reminded me of brother-in-law Sonny Okomski, who has come home from the hospital numerous times from near-death experiences.  Princess Di’s demise in 1997 inspired Elton John to honor her by changing the lyrics to “Candle in the Wind” - originally a tribute to Marilyn “Norma Jean” Monroe.   Princes William and Harry were just kids then.   My favorite 1997 hit was Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping.” Best CDs that year included Dylan’s “Time Out of Mind” and Radiohead’s “OK Computer” (which one critic aptly labeled end-of-the-millennium blues”).  On “Paranoid Android” Thom Yorke of Radiohead rails at “yuppies networking.”

Ryan, IUN’s IT director, had both good and bad news concerning my 27-inch screen Apple computer.  They’re installing a new hard drive but couldn’t save any files.  I have been less than diligent about utilizing a backup system but

only lost about a week’s work on my next Shavings.  Augie Reyes spent about six hours trying to save my files.

Referring to two Marvel Comics superheroes, Missy Bush quipped, “If the Silver Surfer and Iron Man teamed up, they would be alloys.” 

Three Miller gangbangers have been arrested for an altercation Saturday at South Lake Mall.  One of them fire a gunshot into the ceiling.  Evidently it is not uncommon for roving bands of teenagers to cause mischief and get into rumbles with rivals there on weekend evenings.

The latest Traces cover features self-taught modernist architect from Indianapolis Avriel Shull, posing roguishly in a wedding outfit.  She designed both the outside and interior of homes until her death in 1976 at age 44 from complications brought on by diabetes.  Married to newspaperman Richard Shull, she threw lavish parties and once arrived at a construction site in a nail apron and bikini, with a cigarette in one hand and a paintbrush in the other (some of the homes featured her murals).  Relishing the expanding opportunities for women that were a legacy of the 1960s, she was a liberating role model for daughters Bambi and September.  Husband R. K., known as Arky, died just five years ago; his syndicated column “Shull’s Mailbag” once ran in over 100 newspapers.

Got blood drawn for my semi-annual psa test (Tina was so skilled I hardly felt the prick) and had toenails cut at L.A. Nails by a cute Asian young woman who seemed not to understand a word I said to her.  I arrived at IUN for the Savannah Gallery reception for David Klamen’s “Meta-Paintings” exhibit.  My favorite was a nude composition of four-armed, red-tongued Hindu goddess Kali rendered in a style resembling old masters.  Most paintings juxtaposed the likeness of classics such as Monet’s “Apples and Grapes,” at an angle and inside the likeness of a gallery wall, sometimes fronted by white lines emphasizing the theme of incongruity.  David was on hand to discuss the work, patiently and without dumbing down explanations of what he was striving for in various pieces.

(David Klamen's The Problem of Self-Knowledge, oil on canvas, 2012)

I ran into Paulette Lafata-Johnson, who has designed a great poster for next month’s book-signing event at Lake Street Gallery during PopUp Art, and “Rockabillies” author Jennifer Greenberg (who is looking forward to the December 8 function).  After enjoying Ann Fritz’s refreshments, including chips, veggies, fruit, and a sandwich wrap, I ran into a representative from Herbkoe Fun Foods in Moraine handing out free apple slices topped with hot caramel, chocolate, nuts, and cookie crumbs.   

Ron Cohen sent me a critique of Spielberg’s “Lincoln” by Kate Masur, author of “An Example for all the Land” Emancipation and the Struggle Over Equality in Washington, D.C.”  She wrote: “It is a well-known pastime for historians to quibble with Hollywood over details.  Here, however, the issue is not factual accuracy but interpretive choice.  A stronger African-American presence would have suggested that another dynamic of emancipation was occurring just outside the frame – a world of black political debate, of civic engagement and of monumental effort for the liberation of body and spirit.”

The same criticism can apply to Gore Vidal’s Lincoln, which nonetheless contains portraits such eccentric minor characters as union officers Dan Sickles and William Sprague – both heavy drinkers and vain womanizers.  Prior to the war Sickles killed the son of Francis Scott Key in a fit of jealousy; Edwin Stanton got him off by pleading temporary insanity.  Sprague, the “boy governor of Rhode Island,” later married Salmon Chase’s daughter Kate, but they got divorced after he lost his family fortune during the Panic of 1873.

I pulled a groin muscle bowling.  Is the body trying to tell me something?  Because of an arthritic shoulder that prevents me from playing ping pong or even toss a football, I have been altering my normal delivery, with poor results.  Caught (first on the car radio, then on TV, part of the Bulls OT victory in Phoenix, sparked, in the absence of star Derrick Rose, by the stellar play of sophomore Jimmy Butler.