"And Ajax by mad passion borne stern had replied, fierce scorn enhancing scorn to fell extremes…"
These were the guys from the Embassy who ostensibly helped out during the Summit of the Americas. They wanted a photograph with the whole security crew, but as you can see by my distance and deportment, I really wasn’t in the mood…
One of my many attempts to grow a halfway decent mustache, which ultimately ended in complete failure.
Please note the VT flag that I proudly flew for over a year in that Communist country.
By the time I took it down, the son had bleached it so badly that it literally fell apart in my hands.
This is one of my favorite photographs of all time, even though I look like a complete tool.
My older brother was accepted at JMU and we all came up to help move him into his dorm. I was a Junior in High School and my younger brother was a Freshman.
My older brother had a friend from Downingtown, PA who joined the Navy out of High School. On his jean jacket, my older brother is wearing the patch of his friend’s unit, which looks EXACTLY like the Schlitz Malt Liquor bull.
My younger brother towers over both of us, even at age 15, and he’d eventually grow to be about 6’2″ and 230 lbs.
I had recently seen “The Lost Boys” and was totally enamored of that movie. I simultaneously wanted to be both Michael (who got the superhot Jami Gertz) and David (portrayed by Kiefer Sutherland), who appeared so cool and dangerous.
At the end of the day, I came off as neither.
Even though I bought a $200 jacket from Sea Dream Leather at Regency Square Mall and wore it year ’round (even at the height of summer) and got my left ear pierced so I could be JUST LIKE Michael AND grew my hair out into a giant helmet mullet, it was never even close.
I looked like a fool.
Regardless, I think this photo is fantastic because it shows the depth of my obsession and commitment.
This was pretty much my life for many years. Hardcore Dadding.
Matthew had just turned 13, so I took him out to a range to go shoot.
I think that really turned him onto firearms as he was just over yesterday afternoon, one day after having turned 21, and I was showing him off everything in the gun safe and he was oohing and aahing.
A year after this photo was taken he was living with us in Vienna and has just received his paramedic’s license.
From FB:
“I’ve read the book (a lot of Cormac’s books as a matter of fact) and I’ve seen NCfOM many, many times. I watched it last night and I finally realized what it’s all about.
Reading McCarthy’s books, particularly “The Road” and “Blood Meridian” help to make sense of the ending since they both contain similar metaphorical sequences as well.
With those references in mind, it’s pretty clear that Llewelyn Moss represents youth: rash, vigorous, and impetuous. Anton Chigurh represents death: malevolent, implacable, relentless. Something that eventually comes for all of us.
However, in order to understand the ending, you have to realize that both of these characters are personifications. They are not real people. They are the vehicles that McCarthy uses to tell the story of Sheriff Bell, who is actually the central character of the book and movie (despite the fact that all of the action surrounds Moss and Chigurh and Bell just shows up to clean up their mess).
As noted, Sheriff Bell is the only one of the three who is an actual person. He represents humanity. Specifically, he represents man trying to make sense and live a life of honor in a chaotic and horrific world.
The first dream at the end is about the carelessness and incautious nature of youth. Bell’s father (whom he venerates) trusted him with something of value, and Bell loses it. Then Bell dismisses his foolish action with a wave of the hand as if it is nothing – the act of a young man who doesn’t understand the world or the importance of the old ways and what it takes to be an honorable and virtuous person, just as Moss incautiously takes the suitcase of money setting into motion all of the events that end up killing him and his wife.
The second dream is very similar to the metaphor of “carrying the fire” in “The Road” which represents the flame of humanity, all that is good about us. In the book and movie, the Man talks about being “the good guys” carrying it for the Boy (his son) in a horrific, cannibal nightmare of a world. In NCfOM, the retired lawman, Sheriff Bell, dreams of his father, another old lawman, carrying the fire and going up ahead in the dark world with the flame of humanity to light the way for others to follow.
Ellis’ story to him about how Uncle Mac died shows that the cruelty of the world has always been there, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it except to attempt to live a life of grace and honor. Chigurh is the personification of that malevolence and random death, hence, the coin flip challenge. In fact, it is not a stretch to say that Chigurh is death itself. He is a ghost, a phantom. At one point he essentially tells the drug accountant that his life depends on whether or not he sees him, for once you actually “see” death, you are dead.
Bell’s second dream is also similar to the enigmatic epilogue in “Blood Meridian” in which a figure of a man is observed making holes in the ground of the Great Plains as “wanderers in search of bones” travel behind him. The man “strikes fire in the hole and then draws out his steel. They all move on again.” The man is again carrying the light of humanity and leaving a trail to follow for “the wanderers” who survive in a cold, hostile, dark world occupied by the daemonic figure of The Judge, McCarthy’s other great evil literary antagonist. All of the beautiful sunsets and neon lit hotels are just window dressing to keep the viewer engaged in a story about an honorable man trying to make sense of the brutal and cold world in which we live.”
Song Of Ajax 