Does anyone want to see a biopic about Dick Cheney? And can you picture Christian Bale in the role?

Apparently, this is something Hollywood is attempting to do.

Mr. Bale, 43, is a three-time Oscar nominee and a one-time winner (for his crack-addled boxer in “The Fighter”), but he is best known for playing Batman in Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy.

And Dick Cheney has been called "The Dark Knight":

1. "Cheney is the Dark Knight." ("I loved The Dark Knight.... And Christian Bale plays an excellent Batman.... But its message was deeply statist, and the movie really reflects the sort of fear that scares Americans most, post-9/11.... This fantasy is precisely the Cheney/Bush approach to fighting the war on terror. The Bush administration couldn't find better cultural-ideological support for this approach than The Dark Knight and its chaos-driven bad guy and its omnipotent hero.")

2. "Dick Cheney is the Dark Knight." ("The Dark Knight, however, is conservative fantasy – someone who cuts through the red tape and throws bad guys off of balconies.")

3. "The Dark Knight: An Allegory of America in the Age of Bush?" ("Batman is a vigilante who works outside the law in order to combat crime; operating in the dark policy corridors to which Vice-President Dick Cheney alluded in speeches following 9/11.")

4. "Dark Knight: Former Vice President Cheney in the Global War on Terror." ("In a world of suicide bombers, weapons of mass destruction (WMD), covert financial sponsors, and enemies unconstrained by the laws of armed conflict, Cheney emerged as the man in the shadows who would do whatever he deemed necessary to address these threats. The power he acquired, however, and its implications for the future of a democratic society, caused many Americans to fear a greater potential threat from within.")

5. "The Dark Knight Turns Out to Be a Dick Cheney Fantasy." ("But as the film reached its climactic denouement, I found myself getting more and more perturbed at its underlying message, which seemed straight from the office of the Vice President.")

Quite aside from the specific connection to Batman/The Dark Knight, Cheney has been relentlessly characterized as "dark":

1. A NYRB review of 3 books about Cheney is titled "In the Darkness of Dick Cheney." ("[S]ecret power. Untrammeled power. Hard power. The power behind POTUS. The Dark Side.")

2. Just last November, Steve Bannon said: "Darkness is good. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power. It only helps us when they (liberals) get it wrong. When they're blind to who we are and what we're doing."

And I don't know what Dick Cheney thinks of the comparison to The Dark Knight, but "Dick Cheney embraces the Darth Vader meme":

While attending his granddaughter’s high school rodeo in Casper, Wyoming, Cheney showed reporters a trailer-hitch cover in the shape of the infamous “Star Wars” villain. “I’m rather proud of that,” he told them with a smile....

President George W. Bush also cracked a joke about it during Halloween season in 2007 while he was still in office. ”This morning I was with the vice president... I was asking him what costume he was planning. He said, ‘Well, I’m already wearing it.’ Then he mumbled something about the dark side of the force.” That same year Cheney said, “I’ve been asked if that nickname bothers me, and the answer is, no. After all, Darth Vader is one of the nicer things I’ve been called recently.”

"Yeah, I don't think we're in New Testament or Old Testament, we're like in Dante's Inferno, we're in the seventh circle of Hell..."

Raved David Brooks on "Meet the Press" today. He looked weirdly wild-eyed. What set him off that badly?

The moderator Chuck Todd had brought up Trump's response to Khizr Khan — "I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic Convention, am I not allowed to respond? Hillary voted for the Iraq War, not me." — and Doris Kearns Goodwin had recycled her idea that the question is "temperament" and Alex Castellanos seemed to think he was improving on that by saying "it's a choice between temperament and character." Castellanos honed his utterly dull distinction by redoing it as New Testament/Old Testament:

You know, is it a New Testament election where things are going swimmingly and we turn the other cheek? Or is this an Old Testament election where we could lose it all and an eye for an eye?

I keep hearing all these Trump antagonists portraying Trump as "dark," but calling someone dark is dark, and Brooks looked way too psyched about Hell. Meanwhile, Khizr Khan was on CNN declaring that Trump is "a black soul":

"He is a black soul, and this is totally unfit for the leadership of this country," Khan said. "The love and affection that we have received affirms that our grief -- that our experience in this country has been correct and positive. The world is receiving us like we have never seen. They have seen the blackness of his character, of his soul."

"Did you see how dark it was? It’s likely that more people would have been killed" in Orlando if the clubgoers had been armed.

Said Bill Clinton.

IN THE COMMENTS: JAORE said:

Oh yeah, I might note that the sights on my carry pistol work VERY well in low light situations.

But thanks for the lesson, Slick. 

Polar bears are eating dolphins.

But don't hate the polar bear. Hate yourself, because it's global warming — global warming trapping the dolphins in the fjords.

ADDED: If you care about dolphins trapped in fjords, murdered by polar bears, I offer my old advice, originally printed here in 2010:

"Among the early risers... are Pope Francis, who gets up at 4:30 a.m. to meditate..."

"... novelist John Grisham, who began his habit of rising at 5 a.m. to fit in time to write his first novel; and Apple CEO Tim Cook, who thoughtfully plans his schedule beginning at 4:30 a.m."

From the press release for "12 Qualities of Highly Successful People," which I stumbled across as I googled to find out when Daylight Saving Time begins, which I needed to know because I want the darkness pushed forward so I can get back to rising before dawn.

Darkness Pushing Time begins on March 7th.

The 10th pre-dawn post.

And still more than half an hour before sunrise.

It's one of those mornings. I love the pre-dawn hours, but sometimes it's a mad love. I hope you go on to read the 9 posts that I've already done. There is perhaps an insanity/rationality theme. I don't know, but I'm going to step away from the computer to cook up a second pre-breakfast.

ADDED: This is the view from my window right now, completely unretouched (and showing the computer screen in the dark room):

Would you want to go out to a concert of Bach Suites in a space that is kept completely dark?

I mean, wouldn't recorded music be better? And it would be a lot less trouble than going out, your chair at home is probably comfier, and there would be no one rattling a program/opening a candy wrapper/coughing. No one other than you. At home, you're free to sneeze, take you music device into the bathroom with you, eat all manner of smelly foods, and even sing along, making up your own words that don't even have to rhyme or make sense. The room was humming harder/As the ceiling flew away.... You can call out for another drink. Because you're alone and no one cares about your outbursts. Or someone else is there, but they've resigned themselves to putting up with the likes of you. You with your coughing and sneezing and nonsense lyrics. What happens when you call out for another drink? Does that long-suffering wife/husband of yours bring a tray?

But let say you do want to get up off your sofa and amble down the sidewalks of New York City to the Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building at 5 East 3rd Street. I love the combination of Goethe and Wyoming. Especially on 3rd Street. That's not 3rd Street in Brooklyn, where, you may remember, I lived back in the early 80s. That's positively 3rd Street in Manhattan, where you've got a lot of nerve to enter a concert hall in the dark:

After of years of investigation, the Suites are removed from the concert hall and placed in an unilluminated space, in which the cellist repeatedly plays them over a period of ten days. Through the extended timeframe and the elimination of any visual input, the listener and the playing musician are unified within the same visual and musical space.

Scurry over there — would you? — if you're within scurrying distance, and let me know if you became unified with the musician by virtue of your presence in "the same visual and musical space." The "visual space" is nothingness. You can close your eyes while listening to your iPod, and imagine the cellist playing with his eyes shut. But he's not there, and it's not happening now, so unification requires more imagination. Still, this mystic state might be more achievable in the absence of the distraction of finding your way around in the dark.

Uncertainty about the original creative intentions of the Suites invites perpetual debate and allows imaginative free reign for redefining the environment in which they are played. 

I'm distracted reining in my imagination and reigning over my imagination about the old rein/reign pedantry. But proceed:

Bach Suites in the Dark removes the Suites from the concert hall [and] explores their malleability and the notion of practice in which they are rooted. 

Most people know the Suites from recordings — like this — so the notion of removing them from the place where you never needed to go invites us into the even-more-imaginary place in the past when people had no recorded music.

At the Wisconsin Dinner Café...

... in Darkmonth, we're eating light.

***

A whole dead month in the dark,
A dawn in the mists that o'ercome her
Stifled and smothered and sad—
Swift speed to it, barren and bad!
And return to us, voice of the lark,
And remain with us, sunlight of summer.

"WHO EVER READS THIS IM IN THE DARK AS IM WRITING THIS I'M DIEING – Im 28 yrs old my name is Mike."

"I had to break in your house. I took blankets off the couch. I have hypothermia. I didn't take any thing.... I hope u can read this I’m in the dark. I took a black jacket too. Goodbye. God all mighty help me."

At the Winter Night Hotel...

... we're speaking in whispers.

On the Badger Trail...

... the view from the fabulous bike path. Enlarge for cows.

That was yesterday. We did not bike all the way to Illinois... or even to Belleville. At my request, we turned around short of Belleville, and the entire ride was only 26 miles. I say "only," although it was the farthest I'd ever ridden, because Meade has done many, much longer rides, including the ride he took on the Badger Trail the previous day, past Belleville, into New Glarus and Mt. Horeb, for a total of 65 miles, some of it in total darkness, even though it was not nighttime at that point:

The highlight of the trail is the restored 1200-foot long Stewart Railroad Tunnel that was finished in 1887 and is located south of Belleville. Because of a slight bend in the tunnel, you gaze into total darkness. We recommend that you bring a bright flashlight. This tunnel may not be the longest trail tunnel in Wisconsin, but is considered by many to be the darkest in Wisconsin.

Meade did not have a light of any kind, but proceeded through the tunnel nonetheless, using various techniques, including yelling, which I don't think was an attempt at echolocation.

Skiing through the woods on a snowy evening.

Not quite yet the darkest evening of the year.

At the Reflection Nightclub...

... you can expound ponderous things or chat about glittering superficialities.

We've now endured the shortest day.

Enjoy the long night.

Do you hate the dark, cold days that are upon us?

Or do you love the time inside, perhaps because you've got a great man cave?

"Lord, I'm twittery this morning. Must move on to things that require concentration. Grading. Even blogging. Life's easy in the Twitter lane."

Oh, look at that! An entire 140-character tweet fits in the Blogger headline window, even with quotes added. Room to spare too. Surprising, considering that I often run out of space for things I want to cram into that large colored print zone.

Here's the rest of my twitterage from the last minute:

annalthouse Early breakfast alone in the dark. I'm hoping somehow it will inspire me to efficient exam-grading today. Deadline tomorrow.
less than 5 seconds ago from web

annalthouse Some synchronous things are pleasing, but I'm sorry my art museum foolery coincides with the Holocaust museum shooting.
less than 5 seconds ago from web

annalthouse Obama at the Obama museum, where even the wallpaper is Obama. http://tinyurl.com/kk5x8d
less than 5 seconds ago from web

annalthouse Must there be a thunderstorm every morning at 5 a.m.? Ah, maybe I'd love to adapt to exactly that.
1 minute ago from web

"From web"... I sound like a spider!

Follow me on Twitter. Please. I have 1,103 Followers — yeah, it's capitalized— on Twitter and — do you think it's pathetic? — it means a lot to me. The writing over there is different. Some things don't make it through my blog filter. Some things don't make it through my Twitter filter either. Twitter's just that zone between 2 filters. I'm inviting you to see what collects there.

Do you think it's narcissistic of me? I took this narcissistic personality inventory yesterday, after blake tweeted it, and scored a 14 out 40. "The average score for the general population is 15.3. The average score for celebrities is 17.8." Actually, I took it a second time — with someone else — and got a 19. I don't know if it was the presence of a co-quiz-taker that boosted my score or the fact that I was taking it a second time. The choices require interpretation, and reading something a second time, you see new angles, new reasons to veer one way or the other as you decide which of 2 things you wouldn't say sounds more like something you would say.

Ah! What if one thought each exam should be read twice? And why not 3 times? Do you ever wonder why lawprofs miss grading deadlines? Some of them genuinely fret over what is the one true grade for each exam. Others dither and delay or just quite simply can't maintain the concentration long enough. Law profs who twitter and blog — what kind of concentration do these characters maintain?

It's still raining. The above-quoted tweets have aged to the half-hour vintage. It's still dark. A few different birds have determined it's time to — oh! — to tweet.

And now, I've tweeted and blogged.

At the View-From-My-Window Café...

... you can talk about your immediate surroundings... or how you got through last night's thunderstorms. We sat on that porch in the dark and watched them roll in.

The white tree — late night version.

It's dark now. The warm day is over. Time to pour a glass and sit here silently. Or talk to me.

Winter fog... cemetery...

The suddenly warm temperature on top of deep snow raised a lush fog. Last night, driving on a narrow road next to the lake, I said, "This is what death looks like in the movies. Driving into nothing." All the familiar landmarks had become invisible, and I felt lost even when I knew exactly where I was.

The fog remained, but it was easier to see things in the morning. I remembered the photographs I'd taken in the graveyards last December -- here and here -- so I went back to that place to see what the fog was doing to it this year -- and to do some things to it myself with the fisheye lens.

As I drove into the cemetery, just by chance, on the radio's "Sinatra" channel, Van Morrison was singing "That's Life." I can't find the Van Morrison version, but here's Frank Sinatra. Lyrics (by Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon):

I said that's life, and as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks,
Stompin' on a dream
But I don't let it, let it get me down,
'Cause this fine ol' world it keeps spinning around...

That's life and I can't deny it
Many times I thought of cutting out
But my heart won't buy it
But if there's nothing shakin' come this here July
I'm gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die

What a crazy song! It's all life affirming and then, impetuously, suicidal.

IN THE COMMENTS: Original George says:

Keep On the Sunny Side...

William says:

I like the Jewish custom of leaving a pebble by the tombstone -- a pittance of memory by the eternity of death. Even if you could find them, a few bright flowers on a day like today would be overwhelmed by the bleakness of nature. Sad that the Irish custom of taking a whizz on the most elaborate tombstone has fallen into disuse. A few yellow streaks against the mausoleum of some forgotten notable reminds us of the transience of life and the abiding value of malice and envy in human affairs.

Sir Archy -- our favorite ghost! -- says:

I know, Madam, that Entertainments of the Nature of a Turn through a Graveyard, such as you have taken, are apt to raise dark & dismal Thoughts in tim'rous Minds and gloomy Imaginations; but, for my own Part, because of my Sanguine Nature, I do not know what 'tis to be Melancholy; and can, therefore, take a View of Nature in her deep and solemn Scenes, with the same Pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones, especially when contemplating such Pictures as you have made upon this Occasion.

Dark & dismal Thoughts in tim'rous Minds and gloomy Imaginations... I have these sometimes. But I must say that this morning, I wasn't the slightest bit spooked by the thought of all the dead bodies as I stalked about looking for the oldest headstones and the most gnarled trees. The winter cemetery is more evocative of death than the green one, which I have also photographed, but in winter, I work more efficiently. I'm not here for meditation. I'm here for art. I concentrate on that and on not stepping in snowbanks higher than my boots.

George says:

You can get van morrison's version at amazon as an mp3 or on the album 'The Best of Van Morrison Volume 3', on rhapsody, and on itunes...

Ah, yes. Good point. Done, with iTunes. Now, I'm listening to it on infinite repeat as I write this.

Dark thoughts.

Oh... I'm mulling things over now....

***

a swirling chocolate malt of angry liquid...