Spurs

It's been three weeks since I started training again. For one of those, I had to stop for a sinus infection. Now, I believe I herniated a disc and can do little more than lie down, shifting for more comfortable positions.

It bothers me, not being able to train, and not being able to go on a short hike yesterday. But even simple tasks like making coffee are difficult. A nuisance. I have considered relating the difficulties that come along with wiping my ass, but suffice to say it takes less time to simply take a shower.

It does give me time to study for the MTEL, which I'm taking in early May, and to read Faulkner's The Hamlet.

I remember struggling with Faulkner when I was younger, and telling Charlie that I just didn't get it. If I remember correctly, he suggested that was astute on my part, and suggested you needed to be from the South to truly "get" Faulkner.

As I read him now, I do get the sense that his writing is all the more vivid now that I spent a short period of time on a farm. The world he describes is still agricultural. Now that I know what "cutting to the quick" really means, a scene with a botched horse shoeing makes more sense. It also seems to accord well with the times: money, food, work. Confidence games. Aspiration. And all told in a prose that is dense and rich.

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I watched both Monte Hellman's Cockfighter and the bonus Warren Oates biopic this weekend. I'll probably go through the commentary track today.

It is an impressive film, and deserves to be seen by more than just the cinema insiders who are drawn to it. In fact, it worked well alongside Faulkner, in terms of setting and tone, even if I suspect the Charles Willeford novel it is based on is unfaulknerian.

For those of you haven't seen it yet, Warren Oates plays a cockfighter who takes a vow of silence after a drunken, foolish bet makes him lose his chance for the coveted Cockfighter of the Year award, given out by the state Senator despite cockfighting being, at the time, illegal.

It is a basic story: a man torn between love and vocation, but it is also entirely fucked up. His vocation, after all, is disreputable and his ability to maintain meaningful relationships is stunted.

Hellman, at his best, works with simple stories but focuses on the sort of casual but meaningful details that other directors ignore. Watch the movie carefully and you could probably put short spurs on a game cock yourself.