Splice Today

Blood, Beards and Bros

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:43:09 -0400

On the deck of a sailing ship Manfried and Hegel Grossbart, two depraved German graverobbers, are bickering over the best way to kill a witch. It’s 1364, and the brothers have just fled a burning Venice in the company of a pirate captain, a kidnapped French knight, and a rabble of Italian thugs and sailors. The captain’s wife has, on several occasions, demonstrated eerie powers that compel people to drown themselves; the brothers suspect that she may be either a witch or a sea monster. Hegel feels that it would be most expedient to throw her overboard. Manfried disagrees: “Burnin’s what’s done with witches, as you well know from experience and common fuckin knowledge besides."

At this point, a good three quarters of the way through Jesse Bullington’s wildly energetic first novel, I realized exactly why I had been enjoying the book so much. Bullington has given Dark Ages Europe the Deadwood treatment, heaping profanity, humor, grit and violence on the shoulders of a wandering adventure through medieval Europe. The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart follows Manfried and Hegel as they flee south from the Holy Roman Empire, through Italy, and eventually into Egypt. The pair rob graves for a living, following the trade of their repulsive father, and they have internalized a family legend about the boundless riches of the tombs of Egypt, which they assume await their plundering.

Bullington makes this ignoble quest the occasion for a well-researched tour of the least savory parts of medieval Europe, from desolate mountain passes to plague-ridden monasteries. The Grossbarts themselves come across as a hybrid of Homer Simpson and Anton Chigurh: they take childish delight in food and drink, adore the Virgin Mary (Jesus they consider a useless milksop), both are sexually untutored and both begin the book as middle-aged virgins. As the narrative progresses they grow more and more comfortable with senseless murder, but Bullington adds light touches of remorse and layers on enough gore and silliness that they never seem utterly repellent (or, in fact, they seem utterly repellent from the first page, but in such a cartoonish way that they draw the reader in).

The Grossbarts blithely ignore Medieval distinctions of class and cheerfully bully priests, kings and merchants alike. They bicker with one another often enough that it becomes a motif, but not so often that it overwhelms the narrative, and their occasional forays into philosophy and philology are usually light and funny. So too is Bullington’s dialogue, which occasionally reaches the tart beauty of Deadwood but is often at least amusing. The brothers’ swagger and intimidation become tiresome, but Bullington clearly has limited interest in making his protagonists likeable, and every other character in the novel considers them repugnant bores.

Bullington clearly wants to communicate the grit and horror of fourteenth-century Europe, and he does so successfully, but he also introduces elements of fantasy with a distinctive, and horrific, modern spin. The brothers meet witches and demons and various monsters, all of which shed the stately safety of their medieval origins and emerge as terrifying grotesques—Bullington’s monsters don’t look like the two-dimensional illuminations of a bestiary:

Guessing from his sparse and wispy hair he held over fifty years on his wrinkled crown, but his teeth and eyes appeared hard and sharp. His face, however, did not hold their attention.

Under his chine any semblance of humanity was absent, his body instead akin to those of the panthers and leopards that stalk desolate regions. His mottled pelt bristled, contrasting splothces of naked skin.

Brothers Grossbart is a travel novel, somewhat resembling Blood Meridian or perhaps Stephen King’s Dark Tower series (though its themes are more modest and its language less powerful than either). Bullington has a gift for painting scenery with simple economy:

They were climbing a ridge spotted with boulders and what small patches of snow the sharp wind permitted. Hegel helped his brother to a hollow between two of the monstrous stones and they made camp.

In a memorable later sequence the brothers and a monk named Martyn eat some moldy rye and descend from these same mountains amid horrific hallucinations—Bullington treats these visions allusively and gently, which is somewhat surprising given the brutal frankness that he brings to most of the narrative:

For the demon-hunting holy man their travel led over mountains of ash and through clouds of sulfur, steam and venom raining upon them, the wails of the damned giving them no respite. His beloved Elsie remaind absent, but Saint Roch harried their wagon, his moldering corpse demanding the return of his stolen finger.

Bullington delights in wounds and mutilations, and the Grossbarts’ violence provides him with many opportunities to assault the reader with gory passages that are, frankly, gross. Some of the non-gory passages, such as an amorous encounter with a witch, will turn your stomach. Whenever things slow down Bullington has one of his characters vomit, an unusual touch that he repeats so often that it becomes rather funny. The action scenes that produce this violence are the novel’s weakest feature. Bullington writes sprawling, cinematic scenes of bloody conflict, but he recruits so many characters and details their actions so minutely that it becomes a confusing blur, giving the impression of men fighting with little for the reader to hold onto. The action of the novel begins with one of these scenes, an ambush on a narrow mountain pass. This goes on for much too long and is so badly told that an impatient reader will likely renounce the novel entirely.

That would be a shame, because Brothers Grossbart is, in its coarse and sanguinary grandeur, rather unlike any other novel I have ever read. Bullington does not dare complex themes—he treads lightly on class conflict, desires for paternal approval, prejudice, the weakness of knowledge in an age of ignorance and the indelible bond of the brothers themselves, but overall he sticks to brisk action and memorably grotesque showstoppers. The novel smacks of Blood Meridian, Army of Darkness, various westerns, maybe Umberto Eco, but despite its multiple influences it belongs wholly to its author.

Charm City Slightly Less So

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:14:56 -0500

It’s disheartening to know that Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D–Md.) hadn’t noticed a rather major change at Baltimore’s Penn Station. The station’s central arrival/departure board—a massive analog beauty of cascading letters and numbers and station stops (not particularly impressive photos here and here)—was replaced a few months ago with a diminutive digital device which was still not up and running as of March 11. Station employees informed me that the sign was donated to the B&O Museum on Pratt Street. The swap is disappointing, though it's diffucult to imagine how much of a pain it would be to service what is certainly a box chock full of tiny gears. But the charismatic representative from Maryland's Second District grabbed a spot of food at the station’s newest gastronomic arm, Java Moon Café, and informally talked trains and their stations with me.

So far, stimulus money has only gone to the BWI station, but Ruppersberger spoke of Washington, DC’s Union Station as a model to emulate. Closed for renovation for most of the 1980s, Union Station is now a serious hub of both tourist and commuter activity, with a wonderful food court (that’s relative, I guess), decent shops and an efficient flow of people and trains. As Ruppersberger pointed out, the station turns a profit for the city.

But Union Station is more than a decent cheese steak and a two-floor Victoria’s Secret. It is one of the more spectacular pieces of architecture in a city bursting with similar monuments. Facing south, the station’s façade consists of massive arches and barrel vaults capped with shining white marble. A great array of flags and a central fountain make for a humble front yard to the palatial train station. Walking out the front you’re immediately greeted by the Capitol, perhaps DC’s most grandiose architectural milestone, your transition into the city a seamless one.

Baltimore’s Penn Station, though a fraction of the size of Union Station, is not entirely overwhelmed by its resplendent cousin to the southwest. The outside ringed by iron tracery and lamps and beautiful tabs of green glass, the lobby topped with exquisite glass mosaic domes and the main area full of curvaceous wooden benches, Penn Station is a gem of a building, perfectly self-contained and subtle. Station managers call out the arriving trains with unbelievably perfect Baltimore-enriched nasal whines, the floors are marbled and the huge windows let in more natural light than any other public building in Baltimore.

But some crucial aspects of the station’s charm have been diluted: the station’s arrival/departure board is gone, for instance; replacing the small no-name-yet-pleasant café with a goddamn Dunkin’ Donuts; and the opening of the aforementioned Java Moon Café. This spot, a good idea in itself, is nevertheless a wash of soulless larder offerings. It sports a small bar with three beers on tap—Bud Light, Michelob Ultra and Fordham Ale—and a bunch of bottles such as Heineken, Blue Moon and Newcastle. The café side offers one or two actual juices, a general array of pastries and pots of coffee. It could be worse, I guess, but Ruppersberger and I agreed that any serious renovations of the small station need to preserve the place’s charm. As a small move, I would gently suggest moving the fantasically bland sculpture from the front of the building and replacing with something that actually provides some sort of visual continuity with the surrounding urban landscape.

But the aesthete in me bows before the practical commuter. Before we clean any panes of glass or install a juice bar, something needs to be done with both the Amtrak and Marc lines that connect Baltimore and DC. A one-way Marc ticket to DC is an easy $7, though the trains back up and delay with depressing regularity. But on weekends and Federal holidays Amtrak takes over and charges you, at the least, $15 to travel less than 50 miles. If your plans take shape even slightly at the last minute, that price doubles, regardless if you’re going to BWI or DC. It’s a shameless racket, and it’s no wonder Amtrak is struggling to make ends meet. Cheap, reliable transportation is crucial for both commuters and tourists. Once a massive burgeoning metropolitan corridor, the passage between Baltimore and DC is filled with junkyards, porn stores (“adult boutiques”), swamps, freeway traffic and graffiti. A better Marc train isn’t going to revitalize that whole stretch of land, but a fresh start with our trains, tracks and stations would be a huge first step in addressing carbon emissions, urban renewal and the availability of jobs.

Let’s hope we can keep things classy in the process.

"Pardon me, Señor Jesus."

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:21:44 -0500

I recently quit my job and started a year of travel around Asia. Last month, as I considered making the Philippines my next stop, I heard that the annual Feast of the Black Nazarene was about to take place in Manila. I immediately bought a ticket and headed over. It wasn't religion that drew me, since I'm a third-generation atheist, and I really had no idea what the day entailed, but it sounded intriguing and I had some vague idea that I'd get a witty Facebook status update out of it.

The Black Nazarene procession takes place in Quiapo, a small Manila neighborhood with a grand past and a slightly less impressive present—it's known for pirated goods, pornography and pickpockets. The procession takes its name from a life-sized, dark-brown statue of Jesus brought from Mexico in 1606.

Once a year the statue and dozens of smaller replicas are carried through the streets, and every year millions of people from all over the Philippines turn up for the event. It's no orderly parade, but a teeming mass of sweaty, devout Filipinos, all desperately trying to get their hands on a statue of black Jesus. And every year a few of them die in the process.

The people at the hostel where I was staying looked alarmed when they heard I wanted to go to the procession the next day. Travelers, despite our best intentions and highest hopes, usually stick to the edges of the culture we visit. Not because we don't want to get involved, but because in many countries the opportunity to interact with locals other than as customers comes so rarely.

My desire to jump right in made the hostel staff nervous. One of them tried to talk me out of it. Another finally drew me a map and helped explain how to take a Jeepney (Manila's favored form of public transport, made from abandoned US military jeeps) but advised me not to wear jewelry, take a camera or bring more than a dollar or two with me. She said I'd better leave the hostel by 7:30 a.m. in order to get a spot before the streets filled up.

I was planning on heading toward the Quiapo church, officially the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene. I only had a vague idea of where it was, but I knew how I would find it. A large percentage of the Black Nazarene's followers walk the 15-hour procession without shoes—braving dog shit, broken glass, lit cigarettes and various parasites in order to demonstrate their devotion. So I followed a barefoot family off the metro at what I hoped was an inconspicuous distance and soon found myself on a sidewalk that was quickly filling up with people in maroon and yellow shirts emblazoned with pictures of their Messiah. My favorite read, "Pardon me, Señor Jesus."

After receiving so many warnings and skeptical looks, once I arrived on the streets of Quiapo I wondered if I'd made a terrible mistake. Even after months of solo travel, I'm fearful at the best of times. But after hearing from all the locals I met in Makati, the tony Manila neighborhood I was staying in, that they wouldn't be caught dead on the streets during the Feast of the Black Nazarene, I was just waiting for the humiliation of having my purse swiped and mentally cataloging whether I had backed up my camera recently and had copies of my credit card back at the hostel. I didn't see any other foreigners or tourists around; it was just me. And I was afraid.

Within minutes of my arrival a news team from GMA, the Philippines' major television station, swooped in, probably to report on the first white girl stupid enough to show up for this event. They asked me why I was interested in the Black Nazarene, and at that point I still had no idea. I couldn't come out and say that I found the idea of black Jesus amusing, so I muttered vaguely about being curious about things that bring communities together. It was already 80 degrees at nine in the morning, but when the interviewer asked me, on camera, if I wasn't scared to be there that day, I started sweating. "Why? Should I be?" I asked, petrified.

"No, no, I'm just kidding," the interviewer said, laughing. "But seriously," he said, putting his hand on my shoulder, "are you scared?"

Once the TV crew left, I was on my own. But now I was practically a celebrity, and people started talking to me. First little children greeted me, usually in very good English, eager to try out their language skills with a foreigner. I was offered candy and drinks by barefoot devotees who, rather than seeing me as an interloper to their celebration, sought to welcome me.

I met a tiny girl named Rosa whom I talked to as if she were a child, thinking she was nine or ten, until she told me that she was 16. She was with her four sisters, one of whom had a shaved head due to a skin disease; only two went to school. They had been taking part in the procession, barefoot, since they were small, even though it was traditionally a male-only affair. "We are very devoted," she told me, and her little sister shyly nodded. While I spoke with her, a man standing nearby joined our conversation, eager to practice his (already excellent) English before he moved to California in the spring.

Raymund spent the next four hours chaperoning me around the streets of Quiapo, telling me to watch my purse every few minutes. If there's one thing more dangerous than Manila, it's how dangerous Filipinos think Manila is. Raymund sought to make sure that I, being a foreigner, noticed all of the things about Filipino culture that he was proud of, and some of the things he wished he could change. "Filipinos are very devout," he'd tell me, as a group of people carrying sculptures of Jesus being crucified paraded past. "Some Filipino children smoke already," he said, shaking his sweaty head in dismay as we watched a man sell a cigarette to a six-year-old and then light it for him. Raymund also translated what everyone was saying about me in Tagalog as we walked past. "They think you are wearing contact lenses to make your eyes so blue."

Raymund also told me the story of how the Black Nazarene had blessed his own family. His sister had been married for eight years and was heartbroken because she and her husband did not yet have children. Raymund convinced his brother-in-law to attend the Feast of the Black Nazarene. It wasn't easy, he told me. Some people have a hard time believing. But the brother-in-law came, and when the Black Nazarene finally passed by him he prayed for children. By the time of the next procession a year later, Raymund had become an uncle.

The devotees believe that the Black Nazarene has miraculous powers, and that touching the image can result in the answering of prayers. Stories abound of miracles granted to those who manage to touch the Black Nazarene, or even the rope that pulls its chariot. Just making a wish when the Black Nazarene passes you during the procession can produce miraculous results.

It's this belief that drives so many Filipinos into the streets of Quiapo in an event that results in at least a few deaths and dozens of injuries every year. YouTube videos of the holy day fill me with horrified claustrophobia; I can't believe I was part of that thronging, fervent sea of humanity desperately trying to launch itself at Jesus as he rolls by, injuries be damned.

The devoted throw pieces of cloth, some printed with the face of the Black Nazarene, at the statues—not just the actual Black Nazarene, but also all of the replicas that parade past every few minutes all morning. The people traveling with the statues for just this purpose pluck the flying rags out of the sky and wipe the face and feet of the statue before launching them back into the crowd. The air is filled with towels, washcloths and scraps of fabric, as the devoted strain to be closer, one way another, to Jesus.

Raymund escorted me through the crowd, explaining all this to me, pointing out to everyone that I was just visiting, and the masses would part to let me through. The level of courtesy, in what was essentially a three-million-strong mosh pit of underprivileged Filipinos hoping for a miracle, was nothing less than stunning. I kept expecting someone to ask me for money, as people did in other countries whenever even the tiniest favor was given. But then I was ashamed of myself for thinking such a thing, because it never happened.

Some call devotion to the Black Nazarene paganistic. Certainly I saw little of the dour conservatism that I associate with Western Christianity during that feast day, where faith healers abounded, exorcisms took place on the sidewalks, and children danced barefoot in the grimy streets. And even though I wasn't religious, no one cared. They were happy to include me in their holy day, in spite of the fact that I was wearing shoes. For the first time in my four months of travel, I really felt a part of the community I was visiting; I had been let in and wasn't just watching from the periphery. And for the first time in my life I understood why religion is so appealing, and how powerful a feeling of community it creates. It was like being at a rave but without the comedown.

After five hours in the blazing sun I was dizzy with fatigue and too hot to get any relief from the various beverages sold by the street food vendors. I was ready to go home, but I wanted to see the Black Nazarene. And then I knew it was coming as the crowd exploded, chanting and swinging their towels above their heads like so many lassos for Jesus. Is directing a wish to the Black Nazarene the same as wishing on birthday candles—if you tell, it won't come true? I don't think that's how it works with Jesus, so I'll admit that as the statue went by, a burgundy-brown Jesus on a giant cross, I wished that over the course of my travels I could have more days like this one, here in the Philippines.

After the procession passed, Raymund walked me to the metro to make sure I didn't get lost in the crowd. After depositing me safely in the station he shook my hand and explained that he was going to continue on with the procession, which would last another seven hours. Then he walked back, barefoot, to follow the Black Nazarene.

What makes a bad book bad?

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:51:20 -0400

Laying into Ian Fleming because his Bond books "consist entirely of clichés" is hardly revolutionary, but the 007's creator is not the only author to come under attack from a group of US academics asked to describe what constitutes a bad book for the latest issue of the American Book Review.

Play-a-day blog

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:39:04 -0500

The Dew Point premiered in 2001. It's a 2 act play with 4 scenes in the first act and 6 in the second. 5 characters, three women and two men. In a quick nutshell, Mimi is engaged to Kai, remains friends with Jack, a former lover who cheated on her, Jack is dating an actress 20 years his junior and starts a thing with Mimi's friend, Phyllis. From here a play investigating friendship, marriage, attraction, manipulation and how rot seeps into things and destroys things over time, spiderwebs out through each scene - culminating in a choice and a release.

Your favorite comic sucks

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:50:16 -0500

Welcome. I have been getting increasingly pissed at xkcd recently. It's feeling more and more like Randall Munroe is a man who is out of ideas, so he is just writing comics that include as many references to computer science as possible, or his hilarious relationships with many women, or comics with hardly any effort put into them, or some other not actually funny idea. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. It used to be called XKCD: Overrated, but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks. I read all the comments and respond when I feel the need to, but if you want to talk to me, I'll most likely respond to your e-mails -

On Translating Infinite Jest into German

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:41:02 -0500

“The limits of my language are the limits of my world,” Ulrich Blumenbach quotes Wittgenstein as saying in a Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung article to describe the challenges and inducements of the six years he spent translating David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (Unendlicher Spass) into German — something he did without input from the author, who refused to speak to him.

Why there is no Jewish Narnia

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:11:42 -0500

Although it might seem unlikely that anyone would wonder whether the author of The Lord of the Rings was Jewish, the Nazis took no chances. When the publishing firm of Ruetten & Loening was negotiating with J. R. R. Tolkien over a German translation of The Hobbit in 1938, they demanded that Tolkien provide written assurance that he was an Aryan. Tolkien chastised the publishers for “impertinent and irrelevant inquiries,” and—ever the professor of philology— lectured them on the proper meaning of the term: “As far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects.” As to being Jewish, Tolkien regretted that “I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.”

A Muppet Wicker Man

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:07:14 -0500

Because some things just need to be read. Read online. And read now. No, I mean now. I don’t care if there’s someone on the phone, if your job depends on that report being done in ten minutes or you’re a paramedic trying to save the life of Stephen Fry, break off and have a read of this mental mashup by Paul O’Connell. You know, as he slips into sweet unconsciousness, Fry would want you to.

Jersey Shore's Snooki files for federal trademark of her name

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:02:40 -0500

Following in the trailblazing footsteps of "The Situation," fellow "Jersey Shore" cast member Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi wants the federal government to issue a trademark for her nickname. According to the below February 7 filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the 22-year-old Polizzi is seeking to use the trademark for two separate commercial classes: "Entertainment in the nature of personal appearances by a television personality," and--in what will terrify fans of fine literature--"Printed matter, namely books." The Marlboro, New York resident's USPTO application (which set her back $650) was submitted by an intellectual property lawyer with the Buffalo-based firm Phillips Lytle. Sadly, Polizzi's filing did not include a "Snooki" logo, just a simple type treatment of her nickname. Her application came a few days after TSG reported that "Jersey Shore" mook Michael Sorrentino had filed for atrademark for "The Situation," the nickname he has given his abdominal muscles.